Past Cure - Xbox One, PC and PS4

 Past Cure - Xbox One, PC and PS4

  Everyone loves a good story.  If we also mix this story with a little action, stealth, powers, touches of other kinds, and interesting ideas, we have practically the recipe for success.  And if we borrow a couple of things from other history-making games, nothing will go wrong.  or if.

  When Past Cure was announced, the title was very promising.  It was almost shaped like one of those three Indian islands that is now emerging.  Unfortunately, now that we're finally able to get it working, not all of those good ideas and their production values ​​can save them from inadequate implementation in today's industry.

  Powers, Weapons, and Grains

  Past Cure is a third-person action and stealth game in which we control Ian, a former military man who has lost three years of his memory due to experiences he obviously doesn't remember, but which gave him supernatural powers.  Thus, Ian can slow down time and possess people and things;  Although these powers also come with a problem: they cause visions and nightmares for our hero.

  The initial section is one of the best in the game, including the visual one.

  The adventure begins at the front door.  We wake up in what appears to be a nightmare.  After grabbing our weapon, strange creatures come after us that look like bloody porcelain figurines.  We pass through different rooms you can see a red or blue light under their doors;  Enemies will come out first, while the others are safe.  This keeps us always on the alert, guarding the doors, while the enemies we destroy are left wrecked, with porcelain shards floating in the air.

  The story, like the game, begins well, although it wanes after that.

  After this section, we move on to learning more about the story and begin to master our own strength.  Everything is wrapped in a surreal, feel-good aura, which is what keeps us intrigued.  It probably takes a long time to be a tutorial, but it runs very well and never gets boring.  So far everything is great.  The problem starts when we really start playing.

  Past Cure is above all an action and stealth game, and neither one nor the other works very well.  Battles, mixed with close combat, do not offer much interest and do not suggest original situations.  Quite the opposite.  In one of the first scenarios we visit, a parking lot, we'll practically do the same shoot over and over, just on different floors.

  The routine is always the same.  You bend, activate bullet time, step back, shoot the head, and repeat.  Every now and then a bad guy gets into kamikaze mode and stalks you, becoming an easy victim.  Specifically, if the opponent gets close enough, we will also have to face a close fight, which usually ends with a series of punches in the air until one of them can finally hit the other.

  The shooting isn't great, but you could have been forgiven if the rest worked out better.

  Now, shooting is much better than sneaking.  The infiltration is limited to waiting for the characters to go to the location that the developers have deemed convenient for you to move forward.  These spiritual forces do absolutely no good to you except to turn off the security cameras.  You can't turn off the light, shake off the cup, or make noise.  and own people?  Only at specific moments to activate the video sequence.

  The scenarios vary among themselves, although they don't offer much variety individually.

  In addition, there are no diversion tactics and we cannot even hide the body of an enemy we kill, which makes it even more difficult to go unnoticed.  Not to mention other frustrating details, like a clip where the character says "I have to shut this enemy down" and when you get distracted to take him to a dungeon and lock him up, the enemy doesn't get in there because it's not the strategy the developers wanted, even though they give you all the tools to do what  Your personality tells you.

  Although many of the moments are true nonsense, they also contain some good things.  Some of the sections are fun, like the beginning section and the survival horror section that even includes the odd puzzle with a flavor of the genre's classics.  Shootouts also have satisfying moments, the studio has tried to provide a variety of development, production values ​​are very good.  It is a shame that it fails in its simplest mechanisms.

  A world between reality and fantasy:

  As we say, Past Cure has good production values.  Using Unreal Engine 4, we found the environments and video sequences to be quite successful, spoiled by the general nature of their characters and animation two generations ago.  Of course, except for very specific moments, the game stays at 60 fps on the PS4 Pro, which is always appreciated.

  The prison section is one of the most interesting sections of the prison.

  The use of narrative elements and even playable elements from other games and movies is undeniable.  The protagonist inevitably remembers Max Payne, even having to take pills, with a strange resemblance to Ethan Mars from Heavy Rain, something we didn't get into until a mysterious origami crane appeared in the game.

  The hack requires a lot of work from the developers to keep up.

  In sound, Past Cure is very good.  For example, gunfights look great on 5.1, with plenty of immersive feeling when we hear the shots crashing behind us.  The music is correct, and the sounds - in English - are a bit strange, since you can notice that at least many of them, including the main character, are English-speaking Germans.  Out of curiosity, the game has text in Spanish, although from time to time English texts appear for no apparent reason.

  First things must come first

  Past Cure is a game with good ideas, but it fails at its core: action and stealth.  The shootouts don't offer anything particularly interesting, but he would have been forgiven if the melee and stealth had worked.  A hand fight is something you want to avoid, and sneaking has moments of utter frustration, because it forces you to do something that doesn't give you the tools to do it.  Your stealth shouldn't wait for the enemy to move, it gives you options to create your way, and more so if your protagonist has supernatural powers.

  The roughly four hours it took for our game was full of twists and turns.  It's a good start, some interesting sequences, and it tries to offer variety, but at the same time it gets bogged down by focusing on mechanisms you don't know how to implement.  Despite what can be inferred from our text, Past Cure isn't a disaster, but a missed opportunity to take advantage of everything his base promises within the first hour of gameplay.

  We performed this analysis on your PS4 version with the download code provided by Little Big PR.