Bear With Me, Episode 3 Review – A Dark Conclusion

<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;"><em>Bear With Me<&sol;em> has been winning dedicated fans with its teddy bear noir since Episode 1 was released in August 2016&period; Our own Patrick Kennedy covered this release in his review <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;bear-with-me-game-review&sol;">here<&sol;a>&period; In February 2017&comma; Exordium Games released the second installment&period; and the third and final episode makes its appearance this week&period; <&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">To catch you up on the story&comma; 10-year-old Amber has recruited her trusty sidekick Ted E&period; Bear to help track down her missing brother&period; Ted is a grumpy detective and a bit of a drunk&comma; but he is dedicated to Amber&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s promised to take care of her&comma; no matter how much trouble she gets into&period; In the first two episodes&comma; they gain access to Paper City&comma; where they believe her brother might be in danger&period; A mysterious &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Red Man” has been killing off Paper City citizens and burning buildings to the ground&period; Episode 2 ends with Amber and Ted parting ways&period; Ted asks Amber to leave the city&period; She&&num;8217&semi;s unsafe there&period; But she refuses to leave until she finds her brother&period; <&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130146" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130146" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130146" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;02001035&sol;Study&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130146" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">Episode 3 of <em>Bear With Me<&sol;em> gives us the chance to play as both Amber and Ted&comma; each with separate inventories and attitudes&period; Poor Amber misses Ted so much that she talks to herself and asks questions as though he&&num;8217&semi;s still by her side&period; Ted becomes more self-destructive&period; He reflects heavily on how his friendship with Amber has evolved&period; Right away&comma; he knows abandoning her was the wrong decision and the final episode is spent trying to reunite the two friends&period; Amber always seems to be one step ahead of Ted&comma; and she&&num;8217&semi;s getting to the bottom of the Red Man conundrum&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s an interesting twist in the game to switch back and forth between the two characters&comma; Amber trying to find her brother and Ted trying to find Amber&period; The story continuity does well here&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">As you’ve probably predicted&comma; this episode is the darkest of the three&comma; visually and thematically&period; Amber and Ted struggle with their inner demons&period; We find out more of Amber’s heartbreaking past&period; The scenes the two are placed into become more hopeless and distressful&period; More and more of the color red begins to pop up in the background&period; I am glad the game finally caught up with the dreary noir theme while keeping its unique sense of humor&period; Episode 3 finally felt mature&comma; and I found myself speechless at the surprisingly deep&comma; thoughtful ending&period; <&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130145" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130145" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130145" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;02001004&sol;Hallway-Amber&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130145" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">Despite this&comma; I still found some of the story incomplete&period; At least twice&comma; I found myself starting a new scene with characters referring to an event that I didn’t know happened&period; I didn’t skip any cut-scenes and I clicked through all of the dialogue options available to me&period; However&comma; I still felt like something was missing&period; Maybe I was supposed to backtrack before proceeding&comma; but nothing in the game hinted that I needed to&period; I simply moved to each new location as it became available&comma; but I felt like I sometimes needed to catch up when I arrived&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">You can tell the developers paid attention to the concerns of players when refining Episode 3&period; Some of the common complaints of the first episode were over the long&comma; unbroken blocks of dialogue&period; Episode 3 is still considerably story-driven&comma; but the conversations tend to move between characters more often and more fluidly&period; Another concern of the first two episodes was the huge amount of clickable items that didn’t contribute to the story&period; This is to be expected in point-and-click games&comma; but the developers removed many of the unnecessary items in Episode 3&period; This allows the players to really focus on the story and the two biggest puzzles&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130144" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130144" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130144" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;02000927&sol;East-Tunnel-TEd&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130144" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Bear With Me&comma; Exordium Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">There are a couple big puzzles in this episode that are harder than anything encountered in the rest of <em>Bear With Me<&sol;em>&period; The game opens with one of the more difficult puzzles&comma; and you can’t even leave the very first room until you figure it out&period; A key and combination lock puzzle later in the game had me pulling out pen and paper for the first time since starting the series&period; It will be interesting to see what players say about the ramped up difficulty of these puzzles&comma; but I quite enjoyed them&period; Whenever I would get stumped in the other episodes&comma; it was always because I just missed picking up an item somewhere&period; It was refreshing to have to stop and use critical thinking to move forward in Episode 3&period; <&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400&semi;">Overall&comma; Episode 3 is a solid conclusion to the <em>Bear With Me<&sol;em> story&period; The game matures quickly and finally catches up to its ominous overtones&period; Exordium Games did a good job at wrapping up all of the pieces and creating a memorable ending&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A PC review copy of <em>Bear With Me<&sol;em> was provided by Exordium Games for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;