She Sees Red – Interactive Movie

Genre: FMV Game

Players: 1

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Review:

She Sees Red is an FMV game originally released in 2019 on PC and ported to other platforms, including the Nintendo Switch, in 2020. This is a game that plays out like a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, with players making choices for a killer in a night club and watching the results of those choices, interspersed with the investigation into those murders that takes place shortly afterwards.

A playthrough of the “movie” will take around 30-40 minutes, but you’re encouraged to play through multiple times and try out different choices to see the full story. Having said that, I honestly don’t feel like it’s a particularly deep story, and after playing through twice I felt like I’d seen the majority of the potential choices and gotten a general gist of what happened. There are really only a few points where the story branches, with most of these choices leading back to a singular plot line after playing through a unique series of events.

As for the story itself, it’s well-shot and directed, but I’d argue it’s not especially well-written or acted – the dialogue simply doesn’t feel very natural. Of course, this could be due to the fact that this was originally filmed in Russian, with an English dub by default, though players can opt to play the game in the original Russian with English subtitles.

A few more notes before I finish up. Firstly, if you have trouble making decisions quickly, you may find the time limit to answer questions to be frustrating. Also, if you’re the sort of person who’s queasy when it comes to violence, or has a problem with nudity, this game definitely isn’t for you.

For a “choose your own adventure”-style game, She Sees Red gets the job done, but isn’t especially deep or meaningful, doesn’t feel like it gives players much in the way of real impactful choices, and is burdened by either poor writing and acting or perhaps a language barrier that makes the story feel stilted and unnatural. If you’re a fan of crime procedurals, this might make for a small bit of amusement, but most would probably be better off watching a good movie.

tl;dr – She Sees Red is a “choose your own adventure”-style FMV game that has you making choices for a murderer in a night club and watching the repercussions of those choices. It gets the job done, but few of the choices feel truly impactful, and the story itself isn’t especially compelling, well-written, or well-acted. It may be worth playing if you enjoy crime procedurals, but most are better off just watching a good movie.

Grade: C-

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