The Quiet Man, step into the quiet world of a deaf man who’s seeking revenge.
It’s a game published by Square Enix. They’re basically known for pumping out some pretty dang near awesome games, that, although they may not fit your tastes, are probably still fun to play or go along with story-wise.
I’m so disappointed in this game.
It’s so very lackluster. I can’t believe Square Enix would even put this out on the market under their name. It makes me cringe.
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Navigation
Navigation was very simple, as there’s no actual open world to meander around in. You get small chunks of areas to look for things or fight your battles and that’s it.
Graphics
It’s an FMV, so y’know, the actual video was pretty good. When it gets into the actual graphics of the game, where you’re controlling it, that’s where it becomes sloppy.
The character models aren’t that great. And, OK, sometimes they won’t be.
But if you’re going from actual people to a CG person, then it better be close on the mark. And with The Quiet Man, it doesn’t hit very close. When they tried to hammer that nail in, they hit their thumb instead.
While the character models don’t look that great, the fighting scenes have you or another character going through one another’s body at times. Like they aren’t solid.
Come on, now, Square. You can do better than this.
The FMV moments are good.
The game graphics, not so much.
Gameplay
There’s no instructions as far as gameplay. One moment you’re watching an FMV, the next moment you’re actually playing the game and beating up some people.
But without knowing actual controls, you kind of don’t know how to do anything and need to figure it out on your own.
This kind of situation works well if it’s a main character that either doesn’t remember anything, and thus we learn things with them, or if they’re thrust into a situation where, again, they have to learn things on their own. But with this game, they guy already knows how to fight, so how is it we don’t?
There is a way to learn. By pressing start and clicking certain buttons, it’ll show you what it does by…neon signs, I guess?
It’s weird.
For me.
When you’re looking for something specific in an area–such as an item or a door to go through, there will be some kind of signal that you’re getting closer to it. Eventually you’ll just hit the interact button and the game will progress.
The guy’s mute, but he knows what he’s looking for, so at least there’s that.
Soundtrack
At the start of the game, it implies there will be subtitles at times.
You’ll get a chunk of subtitles in the beginning, but everything after that is quiet and a whole bunch of trying to lip-read.
I’m supposing the creators would like for you to experience the deaf world for yourself the first time around. But deaf people typically know how to lip-read, so they know what’s being said for the most part. We don’t.
I hear there’s an update coming up where they’ll patch in either voices or subtitles (like they should’ve) for clarity.
Overall
The Quiet Man could’ve been a very good game. It had the potential, but it barely made it off the ground with two broken wings. (An ironic analogy, considering our antagonist has a mask that looks like a dead bird skull)
The combat is clunky and just overall horrendous when it comes to figuring out how to dodge properly or the correct attacks to use on people.
A lot of the storyline comes down to a list of cliches. New York and its crime, Mexican gangs, druglord (?) black guy.
I dunno.
The story is there. It’s good. The getting through it is the shitty part.
