Review #647: Bendy and the Ink Machine

 Keep circulating the tapes!

 If the last generation of videogames is gonna be remembered for something it's gonna be for the rise of the horror walking simulators, horror games focused on exploration and simple puzzles as opposed to the nonsensical collectathon-puzzles from Resident Evil or Silent Hills. Bendy and the Ink Machine comes swinging with its own take on the formula: The entire game is seen through a sepia-color filter... well, except curtains(more on this later) as you explore the studio of a fictional '60s classic: Little Devil Darlin' Bendy.

 You play as Henry, one of Bendy's co-creators, who left the company to become a family fan. Fast forward to the present day and he is told by Joey, the other co-creator, to swing by the studio 'cause he's got something to show Henry. As soon as you set foot inside the old, abandoned studio all bets are off, as the macabre quickly rears its head. Locked and lost inside the studio, Henry must survive the living ink creatures and try to escape with his life. The entire game lasts 5 hours, divided into 5 chapters. The story itself is alright, although I wasn't too fond of getting 'allies' on the last chapter, by then a lot of the horror and tension was gone. I think they got a bit too ambitious for its own sake, the charm of the setting was gone. 'Cause you see, Bendy's studio is quite a treat, you'll come across various Disney-inspired posters and even short animations featuring Bendy and his pals, really selling you on the whole setting. But a bit of the charm is lost on Chapter 5 when you get partners to come with you. It's hard to delve deeper into this without entering spoiler territory, so let's just say that Chapter 5 didn't meet my expectations.

 Moving around the environments is simple enough, but the developers saw fit to add combat into the game and it's kinda crappy. It's very crappy. Hitboxes seem rather wonky, so you have to be extra precise with your swings, while enemies seem to have a ridiculously large range on their attacks. I swear, at times it feels like it's impossible to avoid taking damage, god bless regenerative health. There's a segment in Chapter 3 in which you have to fight against the three butcher brothers, and it almost felt like a luck-based mission. Eventually I figured that if I got up on some stairs their swings wouldn't register as well, which helped me take them out without much of a hassle. Not to worry, as death is but a slap on the wrist, you'll respawn close to where you were before you died, and often times whatever you killed will remain dead. Sometimes it'll take you a bit further behind, but it's pretty rare. Chapter 5 has this nasty all-out brawl against Ink Monsters that wears out its welcome after the third or fourth wave, but it goes on and on and on, and depending on when you die, you'll have to start from scratch if you die. If the glitches don't get you first, that is.

 Luckily combat is not too frequent, most of the time you'll be wandering around, searching for items needed in order to proceed. Something that bothered me was that a LOT of times you'll walk right past key-items, but you aren't allowed to interact with them until Henry himself knows that he needs them. It makes sense and it's more realistic this way, but it's also more annoying, since once I reach a door I'll have to either rattle my brain as I try to remember just where I thought I saw the key item or spend time backtracking for the required items. Neither choice is very fun. Sadly, most of the game feels like a giant fetch quest. You explore the environment until you reach a closed door and discover that you need certain items, so now you backtrack in order to find the items and go through the door. Once through the door you'll explore the new environment until the next fetch-quest list pop ups. Chapter 3 is particularly egregious, as an NPC will task you with about 3 or 4 different collectathon missions that have you going through 4 different floors. It was boring the first time around, now imagine a fourth.... Chapter 5 also has a doozy, there's a part in which you have to traverse a labyrinthine hall of offices trying to find a blob of Ink to produce pipes(it makes sense in-context) to fix a machine. Problem? You are unarmed and the offices are being patrolled by the three butcher brothers who can kill you in two hits at most. Three times. You have to enter the labyrinth three times, follow the same exact route(Unless a Butcher brother forces a detour) three times to collect the SAME item in the SAME place three times. THREE TIMES. And you'll probably die a dozen times or so on your first attempt as you explore the labyrinth figuring out what doors and which halls take you where. It was easily one of the worst parts about the game, and chapter 5 is already the weakest one.

 Oh, Chapter 5, I've already let a few glimpses slip into how terrible it gets. Firstly, the entire game is full of bugs and glitches. If you start an audio-log and get away from it, you'll never hear its audio again until you reload. Sometimes the subtitles won't load correctly. Chapter 5 has unsynched subtitles at the start. Curtains flash red for who knows what reason, and near the end of the game, some ink-tubes would have red ink flowing through them, which actually made it creepier. In Chapter 5 there's a humanoid boss, if you hurry into its starting spot and kill him before he gets out the game will soft-lock since he won't be able to get out and trigger the next event. And I found about that one because I wanted to get through that boss fight quickly since right after that fight your two allies will come to help you fend off and ridiculously long brawl against ink-creatures. But, more often than not, ink-creatures will get stuck walking against your allies, rendering them invincible and thus preventing you from advancing through the game. The cherry on top is the spotty framerate.

 So, Bendy and the Ink-Machine is a bit dull. The presentation is absolutely top-notch, and the setting is brilliant, but when the game can be reduced to a collection of dull fetch quest then you know you've got a problem. Combat could've added much needed variety, but it's so bad that the game would've been better without it. But even if the game itself was better, the Switch port is so poor that it's kind of a bummer. That said, I think they pulled off so well the aesthetics and world of Bendy that the game is worth a look just because of that.
 4.0 out of 10