Rating of
2.5/5
The Pen is Boring-er than the Sword
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/05/25
“Pentiment” is the first game released by Obsidian Entertainment that went through its entire development cycle under the auspices of Microsoft’s Xbox Division, which purchased Obsidian in 2018. However, instead of being a big-budget tech-fest demonstrating just how great Obsidian can be when not constrained by the shoestring budgets of Indie development, “Pentiment” ultimately turned out to be, in every way, an Indie-style game.
Unfortunately, the central shtick of “Pentiment” – that is, it’s Medieval manuscript illumination art-style – was also the central gimmick for another game which entered Early Access around the same time “Pentiment” was released in 2022, allowing for all sorts of confusion to swirl around the two titles, and muddying the waters with nigh-indistinguishable screen captures. At least, that’s how “Pentiment” and “Inkulinati” fooled me!
When “Pentiment” was first announced and released, I had not yet given up on Obsidian Entertainment ever being a good developer. Likewise, in my eternal effort to avoid spoilers, I tried NOT to pay attention to news about the game before getting around to playing it myself. I did see that there was some buzz in the gaming community about its writing, not to mention that it won a Peabody Award in 2023. What I was NOT expecting, however, was a game that doesn’t just lean on its writing as a crutch to prop-up areas of weakness, but that there’s almost nothing to the game besides the writing.
Presentation
“Pentiment’s” primary claim-to-fame in the preview period was the fact that, instead of chasing the trend of ever-more-photo-realistic graphics and canned Unreal Engine tricks that might look good in the moment, but age like cheese left outdoors, it would employ a timeless 2D art style mimicking the margin illustrations that populated medieval manuscripts created in Catholic monasteries. My feelings on Medieval art have been decidedly mixed since I took Art History in college, and “Pentiment” does little to change my opinion on the style. While there is obviously a lot of tender-loving-care poured into the game’s art, the animations are often rather stiff and ungainly. Likewise, the designs of some background decorations look incredibly good, while others – like, say, pigs – look like the bizarre fever dreams of someone who has never actually seen a pig, but has read textual descriptions of them. Even more disappointing is the fact that, instead of being a from-scratch effort, the game is built in the Unity Engine, which goes a long way in explaining its occasional visual shortcomings regarding animation.
Audio in “Pentiment” is mostly a case of missed opportunities. While there are a handful of scenes accompanied by one-off monastic chants – which are really well done – the vast majority of the game is silent. With an incredibly minimalist soundtrack and no actual voice-acting for the game’s copious amounts of dialog, audiophiles won’t have a lot to get excited about. This is a massive letdown when compared to a similar-budget game from former Obsidian competitor, inXile – “The Bard’s Tale 4” – which worked absolute wonders with the authenticity of its soundtrack without blowing the entire budget.
Technically, “Pentiment” is ‘fine.’ Is supports Xinput out of the box – which seems like something Daddy Microsoft would frown on omitting – but is otherwise fairly lacking in QoL features. There’s only one save slot and the game auto-saves on screen transitions. There’s no manual save option, so getting all of those valuable ‘Cheevos will require playing through the entire game at least 3 times. But at least it never crashed, froze, or presented any game-breaking glitches, so it’s automatically better than the vast majority of modern game releases from a technical standpoint!
Story
“Pentiment” presents itself as historical, but is, in reality, a fictionalized account of what life might be like in early 16th Century Germany. Set primarily in and around the fictional village of Tassing and its attached (and also fictional) Kiersau Abby, the story revolves around the life of an artist named Andreas Maler.
Andreas traveled to Tassing in order to use the monastery’s resources to complete his Masterwork and graduate from apprenticeship to full journeyman status. While he spends his days working at the Abby, Andreas has ample amounts of free time – and time is conspicuously tracked via monastic hours – to wander around the community, chatting up all the peasants and craftsmen.
One day, the local Lord who controls Tassing (and the Abby) shows up with plans to present the Abbot with a gift of a book for the monastery’s library: A history of Tassing. This Lord turns out to be a highly educated individual with strong Enlightenment and Reformation sympathies, who naturally provokes the conservative Abbot at every opportunity, and after finding something of a kindred spirit in Andreas, encourages the player to do the same.
However, it seems that someone within Tassing has a bone to pick with the Lord, as he soon finds himself murdered on monastery grounds, with an elderly monk, fellow artist, and friend of Andreas accused of the crime. Thus does “Pentiment” finally reveal its true colors as a thoroughly-modern True Crime podcast, torturously beaten in order to conform to the Adventure videogame genre.
The player, as Andreas, has a short amount of time to snoop around and find clues about who the real murderer could be. Many of these investigations eat up game time on the monastic clock, and pursuing one lead can mean there’s not enough time to follow up on others. However, there are ultimately three potential real murderers to investigate, and Andreas must eventually condemn one of them before the Papal Judge dispatched to oversee the situation.
Thus ends the first Act. Act 2 opens with a much older Andreas having returned to Tassing with his own young apprentice in tow, to allegedly pay respects at the grave of the monk he saved in Act 1 (who eventually dies of old age). However, through Andreas’ inner monologue, we get hints that all is not well on the home front, and that he’s loitering in his old stomping grounds in order to avoid facing an unhappy situation back at home.
Andreas’ return to Tassing is welcomed by everyone in the village, though less enthusiastically by most of the monks. It seems that Tassing has become something of a powder keg, with increasing taxation and harsher rules laid upon the peasantry by the Abbot each season, and a new printing press in town allowing commoners to get ideas into their heads about fairness, representational government, and *gasp* Lutheranism.
With history repeating itself, during the night of one of Tassing’s local religious festivals, in which everyone dresses up in costumes concealing their identities, the leader of the local rebellion ends up murdered, crushed under the stonework of the under-construction townhall. The townsfolk blame the monks, and tensions threaten to boil over into full-blown revolt. However, once again, Andreas is called upon to be the peacemaker and mediator, as someone with a reputation for unbiased investigation and devotion to finding the truth.
Once again, Andreas will ultimately be investigating three different people and must give up one of them to the Mob once time runs out. This time, however, Act 2 ends in tragedy, as no matter how swiftly and thoroughly Andreas conducts his investigation, the peasants set fire to the Abby, and Andreas perishes as he tries to save as many precious manuscripts as possible.
Thus, Act 3 opens with an entirely new protagonist, a young girl who grew up in Tassing and who knew Andreas from the very beginning of the story: Magdalene. The daughter of the local printing press operator, Magdalene is a fixture of Tassing and one of the more promising options for the local boys to moon over. However, thanks to Andreas’ influence on her during her formative years, Magdalene is smart, savvy, and educated enough to wonder if there’s more to the world than just living in a rustic backwater pooping out babies.
Her world is turned upside down one day when, just as her father is about to start painting a mural in the newly-finished townhall, he is attacked in his home and left with a terminal head injury. Clues at the scene indicate a similar modus operandi as the two murders that Andreas solved in the past… and everything seems to tie back into the idea that someone doesn’t want the true history of Tassing to be revealed.
Once again, Magdalene will fill Andreas’ shoes, as she investigates the various time periods of Tassing’s history, ultimately deciding how to represent those time periods in the mural she is now determined to finish on behalf of her injured and dying father.
While there are a couple of plot twists to be found in “Pentiment,” and a lot of choices to be made by the player on behalf of Andreas and/or Magdalene, for the most part, it’s all smoke, no fire. I figured out who the real mastermind behind all the murders was way before the ending sequence – but here’s no way to actually accuse or even investigate this person throughout the game’s three Acts. Likewise, for a ‘choices matter’ style of game that “Pentiment” clearly wants to be, none of the choices actually matter, as the Acts will always play out the same way.
Each Act takes about 3-5 hours to get through. My total play time was around 16 hours. However, I didn’t particularly enjoy any of those 16 hours. “Pentiment” is a lot of talking with peasants, trademen, and monks, painting an illustration of a certain window of European history without anchoring itself to any significant historical facts. The big reveals are neither particularly big or revealing, unless, that is, you can turn off your higher brain functions and put yourself in the position of the characters.
Gameplay
When I heard that “Pentiment” was an Adventure game, I got all excited about the prospect of picking up items and rubbing them against other items until something happened, in the style of ‘classic’ PC point-and-click Adventure games… that I really never liked as much as I imagined I liked them.
Fortunately – or unfortunately – “Pentiment” spares its players the horrors of ‘80s and ‘90s era point-and-click Adventure nonsense by virtue of having practically NO game-like or gameplay elements of any sort! Instead, the player simply talks to people and makes dialog choices. Some of these dialog choices will modify later dialog choices in which the player hopes to convince a non-player character to do something helpful, but for the most part, they’re just flavor.
Indeed, there are only three actual game-like scenarios I can remember while playing “Pentiment.” First, there’s a mindless mini-game involving the creation of spools of wool yarn that Andreas can participate in while squeezing the local peasant women for information. The second is a simple jigsaw puzzle in which Magdalene must reassemble some pottery shards she finds scattered around an old salt mine at the edge of town. The third is an inane catharsis activity in which Magdalene must punch out cookie cutter cookies from a single sheet of dough, providing enough for everyone in town.
Now, I don’t generally expect a lot of excitement from Adventure games. Rather, I expect something of an intellectual slow-burn where exploring and solving smaller puzzles all feeds back into the ultimate solution of a much larger, overarching puzzle. Sadly, “Pentiment” failed to capture me with its gameplay in any way.
Overall
“Pentiment” isn’t actually an Adventure game as most people would define the genre: It’s a Visual Novel, only without the prospect of seeing some hot anime girls’ cleavage or panties. While the writing is definitely well done, the fact that the setting and characters are all fictions, only tangentially moored to a time-period and Austro-Bavarian setting, does a lot to undermine its value as a narrative. The ultimate failing, though, is that it’s a ‘choices matter’ game where they ultimately don’t, and knowing the ultimate outcome – and that there’s no means to change it – makes the prospect of replaying it for Achievement Hunting or to explore other dialog options feel pointless and untenable. If you really like Choose Your Own Adventure books, and Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” is your favorite novel, “Pentiment” will definitely float your boat. If not, skip it.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Overall (not an average): 2.5/5
