I’m playing two games this week. First is Pentiment, and the only reason I’m also playing another game at the same time is that I needed something to break up the sometimes excruciating sessions of playing Pentiment. I’m in the final act now so I don’t think there are too many hours remaining.

Now, Pentiment is actually not a bad… I want to say game but let’s face it, it’s not a game. Pentiment is not a bad visual novel. It is absolutely gorgeous, it’s extremely well researched and it has some interesting things to say, and some interesting characters to get to know that are more layered than you think at first. But holy shit is the game tediously slow and laborious to slog through. Half the playing time is spent blankly staring at the screen as your character slowly waddles around the town of Tassing. The conversations themselves are painfully slow, and many feel shallow and sort of… banal. There is good stuff sprinkled in there, but you have to sift through a lot of mundanity to get to it. It also sort of rubbed me the wrong way that everyone uses such modern phrasing and language when historical accuracy was such a selling point for the game. I’m still appreciating it - mainly the art and the history - but I need to take breaks from it.

…which I’ve done by playing Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I’ve had my eye on it since it’s written by Bloodlines-writer Brian Mitsoda, and with it being 25% off at the summer sale I thought why not.

It’s a Metroidvania Soulslike with a skill tree inspired by Path of Exile, and I’m really enjoying what I’ve played of it so far. Combat has been solid though I’ve only played a few hours, but the bosses have been good. There are a bunch of different play styles that all seem very different and I am already having fun thinking about builds and planning a second run with a completely different character. The game is beautiful too, the art style is great and I like the splash art for the characters.

The writing has been okay so far, the world is kinda cool but nothing earth shattering - generic evil energy threatening to consume everything type deal. I’m hoping for some twists down the line. You’re playing as an inquisitor so I assume it will be revealed the witches you hunt are maybe not so evil after all. The goldsmith Yrsa is so far the highlight with some entertaining lines.

So far from what I’ve seen I definitely would recommend it if you like these types of games.