![]() The original soundtrack by Forest Swords is rich, deep, and tense – coming in at ideal intervals, for example, to create drama with bassy tones. Tying these still images together is excellent sound design that accurately depicts everything with cinema-like fidelity. This led me to believe As Dusk Falls isn’t playing anything close to its full hand in the first six hours. ![]() For example, a character who died early in my first playthrough lived long enough to disclose a secret later on in the second, and that revelation completely redefined how I viewed the story and some of the other characters. Certain events will happen no matter what, though the silver lining here is that you may get a chance to see those events from a totally different angle if you make different choices. The self-awareness across As Dusk Falls’ several layers of cascading events is impeccably consistent, but this is still just sleight of hand on the writers’ part, and like in any other story game with branching storylines, the skeleton of the plot remains pretty consistent throughout. As a result, when I saw a chain of earlier decisions come together to form larger consequences it felt ethereal. Something you did four hours ago might pop up again, or not. ![]() ![]() Many of these decisions seem innocent or meaningless at first, but they do tend to coalesce and influence the overall direction of events. In another instance, a series of events led to one character’s death early on, whereas making a totally different array of choices led to a completely different outcome near the end of the story. Some actions, such as talking to a dog versus throwing a stick to ward the dog away, resulted in two vastly different outcomes that temporarily changed the shape of the story. Since no time is wasted making you search for puzzle clues or awkwardly stumble around in a 3D environment, As Dusk Falls leaves space for a noticeably wider number of meaningful decisions than in any Telltale game, and they don’t just feel like they’re giving the mere illusion of choice. In the right circumstances and with the right group of people, it could be one of the most replayable visual novels to date. The likelihood you’ll manage to see everything meaningful on the first run is slim to zero, and the availability of an up to eight-player mode where everyone gets to vote on decisions make As Dusk Falls much more of a party game than any other visual novel to date. It’s also easy to jump back to a decision that didn’t go your way if you’re picky about how you want a playthrough to go. These cascading events are a constant source of twists and turns, meaning things can spin out of control in ways you usually didn’t intend, and practically none of the core cast is safe. It’s great that As Dusk Falls points out which decisions are the big ones with a giant sign overhead, but don’t just assume the most obvious choice will always have the desired outcome. The moral tug-of-war is constant here, and you may just want to play the six-hour campaign several times not because you need to, but because taking different paths and exploring these wildly different stories is so satisfying. Everybody has their own view on Two Rock and its history, and if the story begins to paint one non-player character as a villain, things rarely stay that way for long. These characters and their motivations can vary wildly depending on the order of actions you choose, such as confronting a mugger with a shotgun or attempting to reason with him.
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