I accept but do not share it
Developed by Catch A Cat, Elenapresents itself as a first-person exploratory adventure of a little over 60 minutes. A product, therefore, designed to be used in one session, though there is a convenient checkpoint rescue system. The main dynamic that the player will face as expected is the exploration of Anna’s and Lennard’s small home environments, as well as interacting with the objects available in the various rooms.
On these aspects we will return better later, while here it seems more useful to focus on the narrative, which is still one of the main elements in this type of productions. The first question we have been asked about by starting the game’s executable is: “Why does a game called Elena have a girl named Anna as the main protagonist?” It is understood that this in itself implies the presence of other strangers to the couple whose role, however, will not be clear from the start. What the players will kn
ow from now on is that suddenly, and without reason, Anna’s husband will vanish into nothingness. During the very first moments of play, what seems to be a normal conversation between spouses will be upset by the sudden disappearance of Lennard. As if that was not enough, soon after this inexplicable event the home phone will ring, and a mysterious voice will be identified as the only ally we have available in the whole affair. From here on, the real gameplay experience is based on very simp
le mechanics, related to the perlustration of the rooms and the finding of specific objects that will help to establish the facts. It has to be said that somehow history has been able to deceive us, slipping in a certain direction and then disrupting all of our hypotheses in the final sequences.Overall, the narrative works in half, because sometimes it is capable of giving
too much space to the inventor of the player, and therefore potentially dispersed. When we arrived at the end, in fact, we did not understand how all the details of the plot were tied to each other, although we must point out the increase of some sense of tension and curiosity as we came close to the definitive jokes.
I need my spaces Elena’s
narrative is therefore cryptic and deceptive, and all of this can also be admissible in such a title. On the front of gameplay, however, the solutions proposed are completely classical, with some small variants.Most of the time, as anticipated, we will find a home-wagon looking for useful items to understand the mystery of Anna and Lennard.Almost all o
f the furnishings, shelves and appliances can be handled and used at will, with comedic effects, considering the chaos of furniture scattered on the floor created during our trials. Disorder apart, what matters is that when you come across an element of i
nterest, Anna will put the object into a sort of inventory; After doing so, the player will have to go to the special bulletin board and, after arranging the harvest, try to link the resulting clues to each other. This is a typical dynamic of
the investigative (though quite scenic), which will allow you to intuitively move between the various phases of narrative. Given the lack of
other issues of interest regarding gaming dynamics, and also the lack of longevity, it seems useful to spend a few words on the technical sector. In this compound,Elenait can boast of respect both on the audio side and on the video. The dubbing, exclusively in English, has good performance especially with regard to Anna’s characterization, while t
he technical aspect is based on the most proven Unreal Engine 4. Despite a good overall performance, however, we must stress the presence some technical imperfections that, though of little account, can lead to annoying mishaps. During our first game, for exa
mple, we were forced to restart the game because it was impossible to interact with any item after using the Steam chat. Although it has been designed to be used with VR devices, it is worth pointing out how the gaming experience is apt to be experienced thanks to the classic paired mouse and keyboard; the pad usage is likewise possible, but probably less comfortable.
