Admittedly, the supporting cast doesn’t always hit the same watermark, with the main antagonist being more camp than sinister, but I’ve always attributed that problem to Wadjet Eye’s Dave Gilbert when he’s directing, being far too enamoured with his leads to the detriment of the bit part players. Both give these excellent turns of vulnerability and dark horse humour in what could’ve easily been one-note roles as Edgy Biker Chick and Female Ned Flanders. The voice acting is mostly on point, especially from Kathy and Eileen.
If there are any negatives, they’re mostly down to personal preferences and sequel hooks.
It’s definitely the kind of writing adventure games need right now, and Kathy Rain does its best to guide you without being too obvious. A bad adventure game will always shut you down, with no hint of whether you were close or not – artificially heightening the challenge and killing the pace in the process – but here, you’re always a conversation or monologue away from good advice. If you’re stuck, or at least tried to think outside of the box, Kathy will always drop a hint if you’re in the right ballpark. Communication turns out to be its greatest strength. The game has at least four to five tough hurdles to solve, albeit in fun and refreshing way (especially the audio manipulation ones), but if you’re new, you actually don’t need to panic. Kathy Rain works best when you play detective and the game usually rewards you for such initiative, like asking the right people about certain places, or searching for names in a phone book.
Speaking of which, seasoned adventureres will likely breeze through this one, not that it takes away from the ingenuity involved.
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