Death Come True

Genre: FMV Game / Horror

Players: 1

.

Review:

Death Come True is a FMV Game with Horror elements released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in 2020, with a port to Xbox One in 2024. This game has players following a young man waking up with amnesia in a hotel. There’s a woman tied up and unconscious in the bathroom, news reports are saying he’s a wanted serial killer, and a police officer is banging on the door to his room, what should he do?

Players progress through the game by making “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style choices, with those choices branching off in different directions. It won’t take you long to discover that these frequently lead to a fatal end, and it adds a new wrinkle into things when the game’s protagonist realizes he remembers previous runs through the story. And then there’s the problem with the creepy reality-bending masked figure stalking you through the hotel…

For all that this game aims to build up an air of mystery, it likely won’t take you too long to figure out what’s really going on, and you’ll undoubtedly put it together well before the protagonist. What’s more, some of the characters’ choices in the story seem odd, contrived, and at times just plain dumb, and this can extend to the protagonist. Unfortunately, while this game does give you choices, it doesn’t usually give you many, or let you make these choices as often as you’d like. And there are also at least a few plot holes too.

Still, it’s an amusing story, almost entirely told through some pretty good-quality video. When it’s time for you to make a choice, the game stops things and shows you a POV shot of a still 360-degree image, with your choices shown as video panels to select. Pick one and you’ll head off onto that part of the story.

I should note that the acting for the game’s lead and the initially unconscious woman both seem to be okay, as far as I can tell (the game is in Japanese with subtitles). Some of the other characters, not so much… Still the game remains entertaining throughout.

Death Come True can easily be completed within a few hours, but at $16 it seems reasonably-priced for that length, given the quality of its content. If this were a movie, it’s not one I think I’d buy a second ticket to rewatch, but I wouldn’t regret buying the first ticket. Perhaps that’s damning with faint praise, so I’ll just say that if you’re looking for an unusual mind-bending mystery, Death Come True will probably satisfy that craving.

tl;dr – Death Come True is an FMV Game played like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” where players make choices for a man with amnesia awakening in a hotel discovering that he’s apparently a wanted serial killer. The amount of choice here leaves something to be desired, and there are some flaws in the storytelling, but despite that Death Come True is still an entertaining story that’s worth a look for fans craving an unusual mystery.

Grade: C+

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