Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure Review (PS4)

Indie games have already proven that they can be at least as memorable as the big budget AAA titles, with storylines more engaging than the blockbuster titles, and pixel-art graphics often better suited than the ultra-detailed photorealistic engines. Lately we had quite a few examples, one of them being Lacuna, a 2D adventure game, that combines the sci-fi setting with a noir atmosphere.

I am always happy to see a good adventure game, but my enthusiasm is always amplified when the game has something from the old noir detective tales. As such you can understand why the first trailer of Lacuna made me so interested in the game. Yet, I have to admit I did not expect such a complex game where your decision can have such a profound impact on how the game unfolds.

It all starts with a young girl that you control during the tutorial part of the game. Her importance and role will become clear only after you finish the story that stars Neil Conrad, an agent of the CDI – a kind of planetary secret service. Our hero is troubled by some personal problems, more precisely and ex-wife and a teenage daughter, a workaholic attitude and the assignment that can break his career.

The adventure is set off by an unexpected assassination that lets you define the future of this virtual world, by launching an investigation that will lead to uncovering the horrors of the past, but also will help Conrad to discover what is important to him in life. It all comes down to the player choices, and even the mistakes are as valid as the correct answers. Just as in life, things move forward even if you made a mistake.

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From the small details as in perpetuating the smoking habit of Conrad or making him quit, to defining his relations with his family and potentially starting an interplanetary war, every decision and deduction you make will have a clear effect on how things unfold. As a result, Lacuna has no less than 8 different endings, each needing a complete playthrough, that translates in many dialogues and logical deductions.

The gameplay mechanisms are classical for the adventure genre. You will have to visit different locations, discover details by analysing your surroundings and going through dialogues with the key characters around you. Unless other adventure games, Lacuna continues even if you make the wrong choice, while the structure of the game remains more linear.

You cannot freely visit the different locations from the game, you will have to follow the order envisioned by the developers. Also, there is no real inventory in the game, your main task being identifying the information pieces necessary to figure out the events. So instead of manipulating objects and physical puzzles you will have to focus on gathering clues in order to fill out the sheets that summarize the events.

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There is no hint system and even the wrong conclusions forward the story, having major effects on it. Only at the end of the game you will see how your decisions shaped Lacuna, the notion of right and wrong being replaced by the mechanism of action and consequence. If you ignore your family, your personal happiness will suffer. If you identify correctly the culprits you may prevent further tragedies, while the incorrect guess makes it impossible to avoid them.

If you made a mistake, you forgot to analyze a clue or to interrogate a witness there are no do overs. Lacuna is not very lenient, and it forces you to live with the consequences of your actions. There is no save you can revert to as the game uses an autosave system that makes you pay attention to what you are doing and feel like a real investigator. But a peaceful one. Although there will be several scenes where you will unholster your weapon, Lacuna remains a true adventure game without any action sequences.        

Although the story is nothing we did not see before, it is very well told and is elevated by the atmosphere that mixes cyberpunk and noir elements, to create a memorable world. the pixel-art graphics is a perfect fit that completes the Lacuna experience, together with the soundtrack of Julian Colbus. Technically there is only one complaint we can have: the fact that the voice over is reserved only to the moments of introspection of the hero expressed through short monologues. The experience could have been more engaging if all the dialogues have been voiced.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion