Powerful subject matter and art failed by terrible design

Though I praise the intent of this game, I can’t excuse the poor design choices. The visuals are great, the audio does its job, the atmosphere is moving, but the clunkly mechanics meaninglessly resist the player’s efforts.

There is absolutely no tutorial or in game manual, which is unconscionable when players have so little room for error, and mandatory full screen impedes the use of an online source. You have to learn very peculiar game management functions as characters take hours to move from around your shelter to workshops that must be separated by a coarse placement grid. You can’t save-restart your way around mistakes, which would be understandable if not for the opaqueness of play.

I never completed a single game because I would always want to start over once I figured out some odd quirk that made doing something basic laborious. Then to top it off one function, melting snow on a stove for fresh water, was just broken--I consulted wiki instructions after thinking I just didn’t understand, but the needed button just never appeared. This fundamentally made the game impossible to complete. Perhaps this would resolve with a reinstall, but now I have already invested too much time and effort to just start all over one more time.

If you decide to play this game study wikis and forums first. It is excruciating to have a vital character die a senseless death, not because of a poor choice made, but because you were never shown how to fight, or even run. I would especially avoid this game if you are particularly sensitive, as you might find the combination of game play frustration and deep, melancholy subject matter emotionally traumatizing. The subject and aesthetics are very powerful, but that power is quite clumsily wielded.

bataillian about This War of Mine