Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

When the historical novel The Pillars of the Earth was written in 1989, its future as the start of a major franchise was not the sort of thing many would have predicted, as author Ken Follet was at the time best known for spy thriller novels. However, the book would top the New York Times’ best seller list for eighteen weeks, and eventually be followed by other books, with the series becoming known as the Kingsbridge series. This story formed the basis of an award-winning miniseries in 2010, and in 2017 and 2018 it would be adapted into an episodic Graphic Adventure game series on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with a Nintendo Switch port of the entire episodic series releasing in 2023.

I feel like this is likely to be a somewhat divisive game, and whether you like it will largely depend on how much the story appeals to you. If you’re a fan of the novel, you’re in luck – this game not only gives players a solid adaptation of the novel, but also gives them some influence over the course of events. If you’re not a fan of the novel, you may still find it interesting to play through the struggles of the townsfolk of a 12th Century English town in the midst of a civil war and the building of a new cathedral. However, if the religious beliefs and political machinations of a bygone era don’t appeal to you, I think you may find this game’s story to be a bit dry and slow-paced.

However, while not everyone will appreciate this game’s story, the rest of the presentation is top-notch, using wonderfully-animated hand-drawn 2D visuals for its characters against gorgeous, detailed backgrounds, all backed by a wonderful cinematic soundtrack and given life with excellent voice acting. Everything here is so impressive, that the few areas that are a tad lacking stick out. At one point, a character glitched, flickering between two spots and breaking the otherwise smooth look of the game. Also, it’s a bit jarring how despite the high-quality animation, there seems to have been no attempt to sync the characters’ mouths with their voices.

The gameplay here is mostly pretty standard Graphic Adventure fare, though the game does do something interesting in that topics of conversation are added to your inventory and can be used both to steer conversations with others where you need the conversation to go, as well as to have your character look at his surroundings within the context of that information, such s a priest making judgments about his surroundings by contextualizing them using bible verses. It’s a nice touch that gives players more interesting and nuanced options beyond “Use X on Y”. Furthermore, your decisions in conversations are noted on after a chapter, giving you an indication how your choices are steering the story.

Personally, I didn’t much care for Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t. While I found the topic matter to be too dour, dry, and slow-paced, others may be thrilled by this gritty look at the hardships faced by those living hundreds of years ago. And if the topic matter doesn’t lose your interest, you’re likely to be pleased with this game’s excellent presentation and creative Graphic Adventure gameplay. I suppose what I’m saying is that if all of this sounds like it will appeal to you, you will likely enjoy it. But as I said, it’s not for everyone.

tl;dr – The Pillars of the Earth is an adaptation of the best-selling novel into a Graphic Adventure that has you in the role of townsfolk in 12th century England in the midst of civil war and the building of a new cathedral. Some may find this topic matter to be dry and the story to be a bit slow-paced, but if it sounds interesting to you, you’ll no doubt also enjoy this game’s excellent presentation and its solid gameplay mechanics. This game isn’t for everyone, but those who like it will really like it.

Grade: C+

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