Kathy Rain: A Defective--I mean Detective!--is Born

Okay, so I was looking for a cool game on Steam a while ago and found Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born, which seemed to be right up my alley.  The trailers make it out to be a mind-boggling, scary yet down-to-earth kind of mystery, and it appeared to be sufficient for my needs as a fan of the Nancy Drew computer game series and as a person who appreciates a good mystery. However, the game really disappointed me, and here's why.

So, I started playing the game and it seemed alright. There were some good puzzles at the beginning and the story started off great.  Then, you sadly advance in the story line to find that it's not all it was cracked up to be.  Not even close, actually.  I won't tell you exactly what happens, but that the so-called "mystery" is actually a fairly simplistic story with tons of cop-outs and disappointingly sudden shifts in the plot line.  It felt like the story was trying too hard to be, well, mysterious, but ended up being a poorly executed wannabe mystery that needed to take some advice from Agatha Christie. Like loads of advice.  Actually, could you just have someone like Christie re-write the whole story? 'Twas a tad sad, friends...

Also, when I started the game, I wasn't sure what to think of the super pixelated animation.  There were times when I thought major pixeling was cool because the game was set in the 90s and other times when it made me want to scream...  The latter happened to me in the moments where I had to find something that was near impossible to distinguish amidst all the confusing pixel animations... For instance, there was one instance when you were supposed to read two letters from one of the items in your inventory, but those letters were not easily read because of all the pixels.  Gah!  What frustration!  If the guide to the entire game was not available, I would likely still be stuck on one of those parts of the game where the pixels muddle certain facets of the story line.  Loads of pixelating might work for some games, but it didn't go well for this one.

Those were just a couple of my main issues with the game, but I have so many other complaints that I feel justify my overall rating below.  Some of those complains are: the music was odd and just not that good; the gameplay was often slow, boring, and honestly annoying; and the idea of going insane was beaten to a bloody pulp in the game for the sake of keeping the story interesting.  Just not a tactful way of making a game in my opinion.

Is that because you're all cray?  Everybody in the town is off their rocker in some way, it seems.

Some positives were that Kathy was a total jerk (I actually really liked this) and she was unafraid of what anyone thought of her.  In a way, this made her like a smoking Nancy Drew on steroids that was immersed in the grunge culture of the 90s.  I sort of thought that was interesting, and it was even kind of nostalgic for me. Also, though I did not generally like the story, there was something about the game that made me want to keep playing it.  This was probably that "train wreck" sort of effect, but the game made me want to play through it no less.

My recommendation here is that, if you have the stomach for some dreadful story writing for the sake of a minimal sense of nostalgia for the 90s, play the game.  Otherwise, I really don't recommend it.  If you can get it free or for super cheap with some deal on Steam, it might be worth a shot.  But there is no way that this game is worth more than two dollars... I kinda wish I'd not bought it in the first place, but then I wouldn't be able to review it and I'm glad to have the chance to do so.

Overall Rating: 45%  

Good in some aspects, but not enough to make it a game I'd recommend spending money on.  I think these game makers have some potential though; I'd just encourage them to look more into the world of point-and-click mysteries and mystery stories in general if they desire to continue on with a second Kathy Rain game. Also, if there are to be complicated things to find, said things should be easier to see so the gamer can actually have a chance at finding what they have to in order to make the story progress.  

BY: Corey Cherrington