The protagonist of Belpaese: Homecoming, which as we understand from the title is a videogame made and set in Italy, is an incapable scoundrel who has spent twelve years of his miserable life in a university in northern Italy, being supported by the family, but without be able to take the degree.
He is a nice young man, but he has no desire to work and prefers to devote himself to women and drinking, conquering the scene with his two-colored glasses that remind a little Doctor Jacoby of Twin Peaks and a bit ‘the many peasants that populate the streets of our cities.
Obviously he considers brilliant ideas as weird and easy and bad taste, like trying to sell pens with above the little women which you can lengthen and shorten the skirt. Who better than him could go down in the Italian political arena?
Immediately however, his problem is another: forced to return home in southern Italy, must be able to tell his mother, a typical local woman, all food, housework and Padre Pio, who has not finished his studies … or must try to make her believe that she did it, buying a degree.
The adventure of the beautiful tome begins in the square of his country, where stands the half-poster post of a politician, dangerously similar to Donald Trump, behind which three old men are sitting all day talking about who knows what.
In the middle of the square there is a huge-headed street artist holding a mandolin, right behind him is the entrance to the local headquarters of a populist party, to which the politician of the poster above belongs, while in a more secluded corner there is an Italian-American tourist looking for Italian art to bring home. Going around the rest of the country,
whose graphic details are just sketched, but well recognizable in their Italian style and color, will also meet an old woman who spends the day, a German tourist who likes to sunbathe naked on the local beach , an English chef who can not wait to revolutionize spaghetti and another wide selection of characters that seem to come out of an Italian comedy, fortunately one of the good ones.
THE ART OF GETTING BY
Belpaese: Homecoming is a classic point and click adventure, the perfect genre to videogame on stage the local art of getting by, between objects to be found and ingenious puzzles to solve in order to wrap the various characters. This is the first episode of a series, which however can be played in perfect autonomy, because it closes in a more than satisfying way. Structurally it is divided into two parts: in the first we will try to return home, while in the second to go down in politics (in a sense).
In the gameplay, however, the division is not so clear, if not for some macro objectives to be achieved, to which all others corollary.
The game system is very reminiscent of the classics of the genre: clicking on an object you examine it or collect it. By opening the inventory you can review the objects owned (note that each slot is decorated with a white plate) and select them for use on other objects, inventory or scenario. Obviously by clicking on the non-player characters you can talk to us, so you can get information on how to continue the adventure or learn more about them
.In general puzzles are not easy to solve, also by virtue of the fact that some must be dealt with during the day and others at night, with the time running when we let the protagonist fall asleep on a deckchair facing the sea.
