Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Formats: PC

Publisher: Lighthouse Interactive

Reviewed By: David Valjalo

Price: £19.99

1 Star 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars (1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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By its very nature Welsh-based developer Arberth Studios’ point-and-click horror title will be divisive. It’s a genre that piqued in the 1990’s with seminal works that wove a tapestry of creativity across the story-telling landscape of videogames (see Myst, The Curse of Monkey Island, Broken Sword). The first-person off-shoot of the genre is known as its most hardcore strand, its cogs grinding on relentless searching and scanning before unlocking the
hard-earned narrative rewards.

Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches, does little to buck this trend. From its opening frame onwards players will need
patience and time as they scour the terrain of dated visuals and audio. It’ll be a welcome step back in time for many who savour a slice of the old-school but it’s a shame to find Rhiannon so run-of-the-mill in terms of challenge and design. The sketchy, shallow spook-story revolves around a haunted house and a few disgruntled ghosts out to make their mark and whilst unoriginal there is an extra layer added by the presence of in-game manuscripts and documents.

For anyone looking for a reminder of the point-and-click games of old, Rhiannon might be a fine place to invest some throw-away time, but for the rest it serves as a reminder of where the genre was ten years ago rather than where it should be ten years later.

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