When Obsidian Entertainment announced "Hidden Traces," I was surprised that my chin was dragged to the ground.
With the two works "Oath" and "Survival in Confinement (Official Version)" in their hands, they have opened a new pit, and they only need to wait another half a year to officially launch it. Not to mention whether the scale of Obsidian can support the simultaneous three projects, it is the huge difference in the style of painting between these games, and it must be enough for the person in charge to have a headache to throw it to any large studio. This makes my attitude towards this game both expectant and worried.
After waiting for the release, the rave reviews from foreign media dispelled my worries and filled my expectations, but the dilemma that the first release did not have Chinese, and my game progress was extremely slow, and the clearance was far away.
With the update of the official Chinese, I was finally able to clear the level smoothly, and now I just want to say that it deserves this full score.
A historical drama disguised as a detective game
Due to the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, "Hidden Traces" has a small threshold to get started, but if you are willing to Baidu the unique vocabulary of literary crepe, the whole game is not too difficult to understand.
The gameplay is simple, and you only have two things to do: walk and nag. The entire game takes place in a small village in the 16th century, and begins with the role of Andreas, a practicing painter from Nuremberg who lives here to illustrate a manuscript for a nearby monastery.
Just as the work is about to be completed, a murder case involves the old monk who is also the protagonist's mentor and friend, so he decides to find the real murderer. In this poor backcountry full of "dragon songs", given the protagonist's cultural and outsider identity, he naturally became the best choice to investigate the case. All the player needs to do is walk back and forth between the villagers, talking to the old and young masters, priests and monks, and collect clues about the case.
The story of the game unfolds as a conspiracy spanning 25 years involving several innocent people began.
However, if you think this is just a medieval version of Detective Conan, you are wrong, starting with the second chapter of the game, the surface of this detective game begins to peel off, revealing the core of the historical drama. Players spend most of their time traveling around the village and talking to different people to investigate cases, and excellent text and plot arrangements allow players to immerse themselves in that unique history from different perspectives. This is an experience that I would like to call "feeling the whole picture of history."
The whole picture of history
In our middle school history classes, we have learned that before the bourgeois revolution in the West, there were many ideological foreshadowings, and after the three consecutive attacks of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, people's thinking began to get rid of the suppression of feudal ideas and religion, and a vision of a new social system emerged.
The story of Hidden Traces coincides with the Reformation, but what you can feel in the game is far richer than the chapters in the history textbook. Obsidian's all-encompassing performance of this era is enough to include any conjecture you might have about the term "torrent of times," but any generalization pales in comparison.
"Hidden Traces" creates an extremely large group portrait picture, and the entire village is thus fleshed out, in order to represent various groups of people in turbulent times. According to my rough estimates, the main and secondary characters in the game are as many as seventy or eighty people, covering men, women, children, high and low, plus a time span of 25 years, which is enough for players to witness the life, age, illness and death of these people.
Everyone in the game, at each different point in time, has a different perspective on the distant world and the life around them. Players eat and live with them, and the content of the chat ranges from the case to the feelings, and from the face to the day. When these subjective, one-sided, and small views are gathered in the player's field of vision, the waves and undercurrents of the tide of the times will be presented in front of the eyes, forming a vivid impression.
In addition to the group portrait, the overall art of the game also played an assist on multiple levels.
The game adopts a medieval print style similar to "Alchemy Simulator", providing some old charm, combined with the expression techniques of modern comic animation, the expressions and movements of the characters are natural and smooth, and the likes and dislikes are clearly expressed. The action log and dialogue annotations also adopt the style of medieval notes and manuscripts, and the overall game experience has a feeling of being surrounded by the atmosphere of the times.
In addition, the unique use of fonts in the game also brings some experience enhancements. But it didn't carry over to the Chinese version, and I can only regret that. But fortunately, the text effects part has been retained.
The font distinction in the English version has not been carried over to the Chinese version
When the sick old peasant coughs, the words cannot stop shaking; The special effect of writing hard and causing ink to splash freely expresses the anger and grief of the speech that penetrates the back of the paper. Religious imagery such as "God" and "Lord" are marked in red in both Chinese and English versions, while words that resist theocracy and embody humanism are used in blue to express ideological differences.
Textbook script
No matter what, history is only part of the historical drama after all, the script is the soul of it, and Obsidian never lets you down on the script.
I'm sure many of you have heard Chekhov's law: "If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the third act". This kind of disciplined theories can be used more than once in the story of "Hidden Traces", which is like an extremely standard Benge stage play, and each character has a textbook rigorous planning from appearance on stage to curtain call. When the truth of the conspiracy is revealed, you will lament that no character, no set, is superfluous. The entire script is so complete and seamless.
The appearance of a mercenary officer in the hotel hints at the dilemma of being surrounded by soldiers during the uprising; Men who lost their wives to the plague, retreating from the front lines of the uprising for the sake of their children; The devout villagers hope to struggle between the uprising and survival, but die in uncertainty... Similar arrangements abound, making the whole story have the tragic tragedy of classical fate, and the binding of character and fate is as inescapable as the wheel of history. In a historical drama that spans 25 years, such a script form has a special taste.
However, even the biggest waves of history have to be made up of trickles, and players witness death, mysteries, harsh realities and inner struggles, but after the end, looking back on this story, the human touch displayed in it is refreshing.
No matter how overwhelming the intrigue in the small village is, the days go by day and the villagers are still moving forward. The player's words and deeds in the game will affect the lives of others in various forms, and the blacksmith in the village will pursue true love because of your gossip; The charges you make in court can also tear a family apart; The children of the village will grow up over time and form new families... Unlike the "selection to create the plot branch" in other games, as the script is arranged, when the player sees that the result of the choice may be many years later, the villagers will also talk about these results, and a sense of accomplishment in advancing history is born.
When the game comes to the endgame, the villagers gather on Christmas Eve, you know everyone in the tavern, you watch every child here be born and raised; watching the foolish young man become the backbone of the village council; Watching the crippled families who have lost loved ones help each other and help each other together, at that moment you will feel that this is your home, and tomorrow here is also your share.
This hopeful emotional care does not only appear in the endgame, it is like the moon in the clouds when walking at night, although it is faint and present, but it is throughout, providing a light of hope in the darkness.
Write at the end
I know very well that at a time when the overall pace of the game is accelerating, the appeal of "Hidden Traces" cannot be compared with the sound and light stimulation that is flooded on the market, but this game with only 15 hours of process length still breaks through the barriers of cultural differences with an excellent script that is enough to cross the depth of Eurasia and make players from different cultural backgrounds feel the same way. If your procrastination and electronic "sheep's tail" are preventing you from opening the game, hopefully these are enough reasons to keep you playing.
In short, I really want every interested player to experience this game, it's amazing.