14 DAY TRIAL // 
The Sundew tells the story of Anna Isobe, a cybernetically enhanced cop who tackles life with sarcasm and a little bit of pessimism. Set in a dystopian world where even cyborgs are a thing of the past, the best compliment I can make to The Sundew is if Blade Runner and Johnny Mnemonic had a child, then this would most certainly qualify.
Unfortunately, that’s where my compliments stop because The Sundew is trying to do a lot of things and fails to excel at anything. The first few scenes of the game feel like the beginning of a Blade Runner movie, as our protagonist is trying to quell a headache. The music goes very well with the scenery, but there’s little to no voice acting in The Sundew.
The Sundew does a great job at building the futuristic world in which Anna Isobe lives in the beginning, but things becomes very shallow as the story progresses. Developed by a single person, The Sundew is a bit all over the place: visuals, puzzles, story, world building, writing and sound.
The game takes place in 2054, after a cataclysmic war that doesn’t seem to have taught humanity anything. Now the world is led by megacorporations and even cyborgs have been replaced by robots and drones. Although she’s seen as a relic of the past, Anna remains a competent cop, one of the best units the local authorities have deployed in the field.
While the game is trying to tackle some serious themes like how humans, cyborgs and robots are treated in a futuristic society. Sadly, it misses all opportunities to explore these cyberpunk themes and launches itself in a rather shallow race to reach the end without any sort of exposition.
It’s a pity that an interesting genre like cyberpunk isn’t explored more in the game because it could have helped the story be more cohesive and impactful. To make things worse, just about every other aspect of the game is flawed.
The Sundew is a traditional point & click adventure, so expect a lot of puzzles. Some are quite logical, while others will get you stuck for a while. The main issue with the puzzles is that some require Anna to revisit areas multiple times because some characters or items only appear at certain times.
On top of that, some puzzles can only be solved in a certain order. Although you’re given a list of objectives every time you visit a new location, which updates as the need arises, the order of how you solve the puzzles is totally random. But at least you know what you have to do and plan accordingly, just don’t follow the order you’re given by the list.
Another issue that I’ve been struggling with is the art style that made some of the items that you need for puzzles very hard to pinpoint. The pixelated visuals are alright for the most part, so it’s probably the positioning of the items that ruins the experience.
The Good
- Promising world building
- Nice pixelated graphics
- Great soundtrack
The Bad
- Disappointing writing
- Unintuitive puzzles
- Story lacks cohesiveness
- Music plays only in certain areas
Conclusion
While Anna seems like a pretty well portraited protagonist, the rest of the characters appearing in the game receive almost no attention at all. Perhaps the game is all about Anna Isobe and her struggles adjusting to a new world order, but I would have liked to see other characters being explored a little bit.
Many of the puzzles are unintuitive and the writing is all over the place. Also, playing almost the entire game without soundtrack (because there isn’t one) doesn’t really help with immersion at all. The Sundew is a rather short experience (3-4 hours), but not an enjoyable one, that’s for sure.
Review key was provided by the publisher.
