Put Simply, There’s Promise – The Little Acre Game Preview

By Meg Humphries
9 years Ago

&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It looked like there was something missing, but I hadn’t figured out what&period;”&NewLine; The Little Acre is an adorable point-and-click adventure puzzle game set between our world, and a fantasy world discovered accidentally by an old scientist&period; Simple and enjoyable, the game’s charm makes up for whatever it lacks in grandiose and complexity, but only reaches the point where it could be better&period;&NewLine;The simple animation style is actually quite appealing, with gorgeous painted backdrops accompanying a line-drawn character&period; Little movements bring the environment to life, with softly drifting clouds and a smoking chimney adding life to the backdrops&period; In the same way, subtle movements like as fingers through hair and tired yawns add to the very human movements of the characters&period; Narration is automatically subtitled at the bottom of the screen, making for a very aesthetically pleasing picture&period; Though simplistic, the art and areas in The Little Acre are obviously made with love, which makes it a pleasure to play in&period;&NewLine;<figure style="width&colon; 1632px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="http&colon;//pewtergamesstudios&period;com/press/the&lowbar;little&lowbar;acre/images/Screen6&period;png" alt="The Little Acre" width="1632" height="914" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">(The Little Acre, Curve Digital)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;The story itself is also simple, adding an obvious task to a list of smaller, less imposing tasks&period; Each action moves the story forward, and the addition of puzzles make for an entertaining solution&period; The puzzles themselves are actually quite fun to figure out, though it’s frustrating when things that should work, don’t&period; There is only one possible solution to each puzzle presented, making the game very linear, which isn’t a bad thing – but, it can be frustrating at times&period;&NewLine;Controls are incredibly easy, as should be expected from a point-and-click adventure&period; Most items only open a new line of dialogue, while others can be collected and used with the click of a button&period; The annoying part of this comes with the inability to skip dialogue entirely, even after it’s already been heard&period; That, combined with small hitboxes and an over-sensitive menu can make for a frustrating few seconds in some puzzles&period; Nothing is game-breakingly annoying, but it causes quite a lot of irritation when the menu resets in the middle of solving a clue&period;&NewLine;<figure style="width&colon; 1920px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="http&colon;//pewtergamesstudios&period;com/press/the&lowbar;little&lowbar;acre/images/Screen3&period;png" alt="The Little Acre" width="1920" height="1080" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">(The Little Acre, Curve Digital)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;The soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of the game&semi; beautifully orchestrated and well imposed&period; Mainly driven by piano and light violin, the soundtrack only adds additional appeal to the layers within the game&period; Submersion is key to a point-and-click, and the music in each realm draws you in very effectively&period; The only audible issue, in fact, are small sound-mixing errors&period; Occasionally dialogue is too loud, or doesn’t match the volume of previous dialogue&period; The same goes for sound effects, with some seeming to be appropriate, and some missing the mark&period; However, it diminishes the gameplay only slightly, and is easy to ignore&period;&NewLine;My biggest issue came actually with one of the main characters, Lily&period; Built up to be a delightful and precocious young girl, she disappoints slightly in her introduction&period; The light female voice doesn’t seem to match the small and determined body, and feels more like a grown-up trying to act like a child, rather than a child trying to act like a grown-up&period; However, her dialogue can be amusing, and the small issues don’t make the character obnoxious&period; It’s more of an annoying blip on a much larger radar&period; But, because of this, my favorite character is actually the dog, who reminds me of Buttons from Buttons and Mindy&period; If Lilly resemble Mindy a bit more, she’d be a more likable kid&period;&NewLine;<figure style="width&colon; 1431px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="http&colon;//www&period;dsogaming&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Screenshot1&period;jpg" alt="The Little Acre" width="1431" height="802" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">(The Little Acre, Curve Digital)</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;Overall, The Little Acre is a lovely game, and shows immense promise&period; The worlds explored up to this point have been beautiful and interesting, but the puzzles have not gotten harder&period; It is my hope that <a href="https&colon;//youtu&period;be/Hcd5mtci9ds">The Little Acre</a> finishes strong, with an ending that effectively explains and concludes the adventure&period; A wrench in the wheel might be fun, as would a few new playable characters&period; I truly enjoyed the first half of the game, and really look forward to finishing the story, despite the little issues I’ve encountered&period;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;<hr />&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;A PS4 Preview Code for The Little Acre was provided by Curve Digital for the purpose of this preview&NewLine;

Categories: Game Previews, PS4 Previews
Tags: Games PlayStation Top Stories

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