My first experience with Back To The Dawn was when I played the demo a couple of years ago, it was so immediately impressive that it took a very comfy spot in my wishlist and when I heard the 1.0 release was happening on 18th July, I wanted to jump right in.
Back To The Dawn brings a prison-break story with RPG system, a beautiful pixel art style and a variety of minigames as you make your life in Prison more bearable and plan your ultimate escape. Where it truly shines though, is the writing.
You’re in a bad situation after being falsely imprisoned (if you play Thomas The Fox’s story) or an undercover cop trying to expose a something sinister if you go the way of Bob The Black Panther. Both stories are extremely well done and you immediately resonate and connect with the characters and the cast of colorful characters you come across in the story.
Back To The Dawn has writing that makes you care about each character, this is not an easy feat, especially when all the characters are different animals. To make each character feel extremely human, with their flaws and hidden agendas, loyalties and trigger points – Use your knowledge to gain friends, allies and a few enemies on the way.
Not to take anything way from the great game Metal Head Games has created, but this writing is worthy of a GOTY in itself. I haven’t had a game make me care about the characters in the world as much as this since Red Dead Redemption 2.
The game allows you to escape the prison in multiple ways, giving ample opportunities to replay, you even get to play as Bob The Black Panther if you want an extra spice of challenge and variety, with a hint at more coming in the selection screen.
The game does battle with a bit of vagueness when it comes to next steps, sometimes it feels like you’re going through the same motions and failing to make headway – it can weigh against you going through the story again.
The fact you get to pick 2 different characters and stories does help however, letting you experience the game your way, I loved the fact that their stories intertwined and enabled you to experience multiple perspectives to the overarching storyline.
Most quests you get on the inside is time bound, but certain activities are impossible on some days, for one I had a quest asking me to make a character go to segregation, usually done by convincing them to fight another. Except the character was busy playing Basketball the last day and no matter what I tried, could not convince them to pick a fight as it said he was busy and doing something with another prisoner.
By the time basketball finished, sadly the quest failed. The quests tend to lose the time limit later, which I guess is down to certain number of days passing but atleast in the easiest difficulty, I’d love it if the quests, when possible (when it comes to building relationships etc) didn’t have a time limit on.
While not perfect, this is one of the games that I’ve enjoyed pouring my free time into and is well worth a look when it comes to 1.0 on July 18th, but if you don’t want to wait, you can pick up that beautiful Early Access Discount right now over on steam!
A game that has replayability, brilliant writing and a charming art style, Back To The Dawn is an easy recommendation from our side.
| Note: Key was provided for the review. |
Comments