Also On: PS4, PC
Publisher: LOOT Entertainment
Developer: Night Light Interactive
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
ESRB: T
I feel like I enjoy Whispering Willows for the wrong reason. See, itโs an adventure game I was able to beat with a minimum of outside help, and thatโs normally not something Iโm able to achieve on my own. The very fact I was able to do that makes me feel a certain fondness towards it โ even if I can see that, as adventure games go, itโs got its fair share of flaws.
First and foremost among these: the game features some ridiculous spikes in difficulty. And I donโt just mean that every so often it becomes a little harder than normal. I mean that Whispering Willows is generally a fairly easy, straightforward game that occasionally becomes thoroughly impossible. I donโt want to give away exactly what happens โ the whole thing centres around a mysterious ghost story, after all โ but there are one or two spots (particularly near the end) where the game suddenly throws aside everything else itโs trying to do in the name of killing your character at all costs. At these points, youโre basically relying 100% on luck to get by. Youโll eventually get through with a bit of persistence, of course, but itโs still pretty jarring to go from one end of the difficulty spectrum to the other with no warning whatsoever.
The only other area in the game thatโs even slightly as difficult is in the way it expects you to just remember everything. Now, for the most part, thatโs not too difficult; youโre generally tasked with going to Person or Point A, where youโre instructed to go to Person/Point B, where in turn you get sent on your way to Person/Point C, and so on. That, obviously, doesnโt require too much memorization, and as long as you can follow along with the story it will mostly make sense. But considering there are a couple of pretty sizeable places to explore โ the main mansion, obviously, to say nothing of when you start off the game stuck in some catacombs โ Whispering Willows definitely wouldโve benefited from providing players with some kind of map. After all, it forces you to read through dozens and dozens of note to reveal its story; one more screen doesnโt seem like it wouldโve complicated things too much.
Thankfully, even without a map, youโll probably be able to follow along simply because the plot is pretty engaging. Itโs a spooky little ghost story about a girl trying to rescue her father from a haunted mansion, and Whispering Willows does a good job of conveying everything you need to know via notes scattered throughout the mansion grounds. Itโs not a particularly long story, but it doesnโt need to be, either; I suspect that if it had taken longer than the few hours it takes to beat the game, it wouldโve required some unnecessary plot padding, and that wouldnโt have helped the game in any way.
What does help the game, by contrast: its incredibly foreboding atmosphere. Whispering Willows understands that the best way to make something scary is simply by creating a vague sense of unease, and it nails that vibe consistently. Between the spooky shadows at the edge of the screen, the creepy sounds that emanate from every darkened corner and bush, and โ most importantly โ the sinister soundtrack thatโs constantly, persistently moving forward, this game knows what it takes to leave you feeling seriously unsettled.
Which, of course, is pretty much the whole point of a horror adventure like Whispering Willows. Itโs creepy enough to get you into the spirit of the game, but not so creepy that itโll freak the more faint-hearted players (i.e. like me) out. Now, if it could just do something about those terrifying difficulty spikesโฆ