Kathy Rain On My Parade: Kathy Rain Review

Kathy Rain On My Parade: Kathy Rain Review 

Title: Kathy Rain 

Initial Release: 5th May 2016 

Platforms: PC, Android, iOS 

Punk/Goth Level: 100 

I’m gonna be honest, I really enjoy point and click games, though nowadays they are few in numbers and can be considered fairly obsolete; though I’ve now got an addiction to vinyl records so I clearly enjoy things that are useless in modern times. I think the reason I enjoy point and click games as much as I do is simple; I enjoy narrative focused games and what are point and click games if not narrative focused cause I can say they weren’t popular for their engaging gameplay or fair yet tough puzzles or even their not at all obnoxious, albeit sometimes amusing, deaths. That being said the types of... You know I’m tired already of typing, “point and click” and I don’t want to refer to them as, “adventure games” because I feel that’s too broad of a statement plus somewhere hardly adventurous, I’ll just call them pointy clicks? Yeah sure, pointy clicks. The type of pointy clicks I enjoy are the Lucas Art’s style, where their aren’t any surprise deaths and you can’t get yourself in any unwinnable situations, I just don’t find it very fun. But as I mentioned before, Pointy clicks have become less and less popular as the years went on and the technology became more advance, that being said even though there are less pointy click games the ones that are seem to be some of the best. From what I’ve heard at least, I still haven’t tried Thimbleweed Park. 

Story 

Kathy Rain is a about a girl, in the 80s, Kathy Rain, cause the name of the game is actually her name, so the protagonist is Kathy Rain, Clear? Good. Kathy Rain, the game, is about Kathy Rain, the girl, going through college, getting drunk and partying. At least, that’s the impression it gives at first; it then is made known to Kathy through her friend and roommate, Eileen, that her Kathy's grandfather has recently past away. Kathy then goes to his funeral and meets her grandmother, who she has not spoken to in many years. Kathy's grandmother reveals that the conditions surrounding the death were less than ordinary. Since Kathy is studying journalism in college and because she had a very close relationship with her grandfather, when they were allowed to see each other, she promises her grandmother she will find out what happened. 

I would say the best way to describe this game is as a murder mystery pointy click. That being said I would also describe this as having horror elements thrown in for good measure but thankfully it’s never the sort of horror that has to rely solely on jump scares; instead it goes down the route of building tension and having little things here and there that seem like they don’t belong, then throw in some creepy visuals and play with the player a bit and hey you got an pointy click murder mystery with some cool horror elements. A reason I don’t want to call it a just a horror game is because: It is definitely a murder mystery all the way through and the horror elements only really become prominent about half way through the game where you start learning about the characters and the history of the game. 

Presentation 

I have to say I love the visual style of Kathy Rain. I love the pixel art style, I love the way the characters are designed and presented: Speaking of characters, because apparently presentation is a good place to talk about the characters, it works in my head ok? I really like all the characters in this pointy click game, without spoilers, I think all, the important characters at least, have good story arch's. Especially Kathy herself, I actually really like the character of Kathy and how she grows and handles different events that happen in the game; she feels very 3D, which is kinda ironic. Kathy is the reason that I would honestly not mind another game that follows her story through life. The voice acting in this game is sometimes hit and miss, when it's good I think it's good or at the very least it's passable; when it's bad it feels flat and the points in the script that requires the voice to be emotional it comes off as just mediocre and uninspired and a bit forced. Now, it's no Resident Evil; where the voice acting makes the game unintentionally hilarious which also kinda help cover the horribly aged gameplay, or Silent Hill 2 where the mediocre voice acting actually helps you believe that James is just a random guy who can barely swing a lead pipe. The bad voicing in Kathy Rain isn't so offensive that it makes you want to stop playing, it is simply just slightly off putting and mediocre at points, that being said it's usually the side characters with the questionable VA; Kathy and her friends are pretty well acted. The writing is pretty good too. One last thing I want to say about the presentation is that sometimes I can't tell between items that I can interact with and the background, however this seems to be a common thing with pointy click games so I suppose I could let it go, however it really slows down the pace of the game and can lead to a lot of frustration.

Gameplay 

I mean, it's a pointy click. Really I don't have much else to say about the gameplay. Kathy Rain isn't really breaking any barriers here; it's not really doing anything new. Basically you control Kathy by pointing at a space and clicking it, hence the name pointy clicks, this either moves her or has her interact with something. One thing I will say is that most pointy clicks, especially the older ones, rely on something known as 'moon logic' this simply means the puzzles are so out of reality that unless you're in the mindset of the game designer then you probably won't guess the solutions by applying logic to them; my way of tackling moon logic is simple, it's called an online guide. Still, it can be very frustrating and lead to moments of the player very simply thinking, 'what the actual fuck!' Kathy Rain, however, for the most part has puzzles that aren't too challenging and can be easily solved if you look around and have a good ol' think about them.

All in all, I really enjoyed Kathy Rain, even though it isn't the most ground breaking pointy click and it does have its problems but I enjoyed every part of the game and would definitely want to play it again, and even get a second game. So if you like pointy clicks, mystery games with slight horror elements and a genuinely interesting story with pretty good characters, if you can barely the occasion flatly delivered line then you should definitely try this game; and hey it's on mobile too so why not try it on the go?

It's not a phase, mom/10 

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