When about a year ago we got to try Kona , we were fascinated. Since its beta, the title made by the independent team Parabole has proven to be able to make the most of the attractiveness offered by a setting like that of the wildest Canada, capturing the player with its exploratory component shrouded in mystery.
A more than valid reason to mark the release date on the calendar then for March 17, 2017, the day when Kona has abandoned the
Early Access phase to get on PC, but not only. At the same time, Kona is indeed also released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One: the console version – specifically the one for the Sony car – was the one we tried to write the review you are reading. Will the first impressions be confirmed?
Other than spring, Kona’s Canada is still very full of winter!
WHERE IS EVERYBODY?
The place that is the background to the events told by Kona is Atamipek Lake, an imaginary area of Canada located in northern Quebec. We are in the 1970s and a community of Cree natives lives in these parts, which came into conflict with the rich industrial W. Hamilton, owner of a copper mine in the region.
It is precisely the magnate who calls into question the protagonist of the game, Carl Faulbert, a war veteran who has been re-invented as a private investigator once he returns home.
Hamilton asks our character to investigate a series of vandalistic acts against one of his properties, giving him an appointment at the local drug store to make arrangements and start searching for the perpetrators. The client’s wallet convinces Carl to climb to the north without asking too many questions, but shortly before arriving at the meeting place the investigator has an accident and ends off-road, losing consciousness
. Once awake, Carl begins to realize that he is the only human being in the area, while the snowstorm – extraordinary even for such a “Nordic” place – continues incessantly.As if this were not enough, once reached the emporium Carl actually finds Hamilton waiting for him, but in the form of a corpse: the investigator decides not to back down, continuing to have to truth to try to understand what happened to Atamipek Lake.
Without revealing anything else, we simply say that the events linked to Hamilton will end up intertwining with those of the locals, until the inevitable supernatural component is at the base of all the events.
The plot for the truth does not shine particularly in terms of originality, and it is also for this reason that Kona manages to give the best of himself during the early stages of the game.
Finding ourselves forced to explore in solitude an environment where the presence of a mystery keeps on breathing on the neck while the centimeters of snow accumulate is an experience at the limits of the agonizing , fed by an omniscient narrator who, if necessary, does not have problems joke about the fate of Carl.
The narrative component therefore plays a fundamental role in Kona, labeled as a horror incorrectly: beyond the macabre elements that make up the plot, the main source of stress is dictated by the feeling of being alone in the middle of nowhere, an aspect in which the Parabole project manages to reach excellent levels.
