Night Dive Studios presents Noctropolis, a beautifully rendered, adult graphic adventure about the grisly things you dream. New Enhanced Edition.
Very Positive
2 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Y | Y | Y |
| French | — | Y | Y |
| German | — | Y | Y |
| Spanish (Spain) | — | Y | Y |
Old 1994 point and click, has some... out of touch and severely outdated dialogue options. Also there is the classic case of missing items you'll need WAY down the line if you do not scan the area. A challange without a guide for sure. Also there is 1 instance where you can use an item, leave the area and you are basically soft locked as the item disappears after 1 use but you won't be able to reenter the area without it.
SO MAKE SURE YOU SAVE OFTEN.
SPOILERS
Please be aware there is a on screen act of SA with the main character as the victem as well (non graphic but it is confirmed also in text later SA was occuring).
Otherwise a very fun game of it's time, rough but still an enjoyable challange.
What a unique game.
Noctropolis is one of those obscure adventure games from the 90s, that was featured in gaming magazines of the era, generally with a full page ad showing something a posted that resembled a hybrid between Batman and Elvira.
You will quickly find out that the game was developed by most of the same team as older adventure games like Countdown and Martian Memorandum. Expect similar gameplay and interface as those games. From the get go, you will be presented with an action comic where you can read the dialogues by clicking on each character. You are presented to a ton of information on world, characters, rivalries and lore about this town submerged in eternal darkness. It's all optional though, but the world building is probably the best aspect of the game.
You play as a bookstore owner who gets sucked into the world of one of his favorite comic books. The plot might start similar to what we've seen in Gabriel Knight or even Simon the Sorcerer, but that's where the comparisons end. The game looks and weird villains will remind you of the Batman universe, particularly the Tim Burton movies from that time. You quickly adopt the personality of the hero and will have to fight against 5 weird themed villains that could have easily been Batman foes. No Poison Ivy but Greenthumb, no Harley Quinn but Tophat, a crazy scientist called Dr Macabre, Drealmer, who sends you to dreamland, and a succubus. You are also joined by a sidekick named Stiletto, a Catwoman like character.
Each one of the villains will capture and hurt you. This brings an onscreen timer, you have to return to your base in time to heal otherwise you die. Granted, the time limits are very generous, but it still feels very tense since it's not immediately obvious what you need to do.
The visuals are just stunning, each background looks unique and have a perfect use of palette colors. There's also small videos played when you talked with characters. The game is voiced in this way with an average acting. All other descriptions and interactions are just text. The game is notorious for a naked scene of your partner, just a little bit of boobs in a pixelated video. It lasts about 3 seconds so mind you if you are against this kind of content. Music is generally ok, but not that memorable.
Most puzzles are logical, but since the game relies on fantasy a lot, there are a couple of instances where it's unclear what's the use for every object. You can speak with characters about almost every subject in the game in order to gather more information or unlock a new location.
Unfortunately there's a couple of issues. The game has a ton of hotspots to examine, but no way to highlight them. You will have to comb screens if you missed an item while reading at tons of incidental descriptions of how a beam was built, or why the floor looks that way. By the end of the game, your inventory is full of items and it gets really hard to know what is still useful. It's one of those games where a guide or at least hints are needed to avoid being stuck for ages.
This is a very unique adventure game, that could be much better with some better pacing and hinting. The ending is also very abrupt, basically a 3 second scene. Compared to the original 90s release, this version actually fixes bugs and nonintended deadends. This means this is the best way to play Noctropolis these days.
