Castaways from the past in post-apocalyptic Africa – “Beautiful Desolation” review

At the beginning, it is worth briefly discussing the setting presented to us and the general outline of the plot, because this is what makes the new title from The Brotherhood Games studio stand out the most. The introduction to Beautiful Desolation introduces us to an alternative version of the story, in which in 1976 a triangular station filled with futuristic machinery, later dubbed Penrose, unexpectedly hung over South Africa. The station is abandoned, and its origin remains unknown (at least to ordinary citizens), but subject to research by scientists and the military, it causes a huge technological leap for all mankind. In the following years, the flow of information and solutions derived from the station systems to the wider public is regulated by a relationship called Penrose Allied.

That’s when we come in, playing the role of Mark Leslie, a journalist privately involved in researching Penrose Allied’s activities. He suspects that the organization knows much more about the station than it tells the media, and in addition its members lie about their suspicions about the creators of the station and the circumstances of its appearance over Africa. With these gloomy forebodings, Mark leads his long-lost brother Don Leslie to an unauthorized flight to Penrose under the cover of a powerful storm, in the absence of the temporarily evacuated personnel to search for evidence. At the station, unfortunately, things get out of hand, and the brothers – along with a randomly encountered robotic dog named Pooch – crash into the ground while trying to leave Penrose. This is where the actual part of the game begins;

A brilliant child of point’n’click and old-fashioned role-playing game

In terms of gameplay , this production is the result of several different genres, and interestingly, all of them experienced the peak of popularity at least a dozen years ago. So it is, to some extent, refreshing older patterns and restoring them to their former glory – fortunately, definitely successful.

At first glance, the game can be considered a typical isometric erpeg in the fashion of the nineties, it immediately comes to mind, for example, Planescape: Torment or Baldur’s Gate . In fact, however, Beautiful Desolation is not an RPG title, because we will not experience the character creator, our hero’s development trees, extensive equipment or even combat mechanics. The camera’s work and a simple character control system are responsible for the associations, as well as the extensive plot, engaging dialogues in which we decide what our hero will say, and numerous, carefully prepared locations waiting to be explored.

When it comes to the gameplay itself, there are many more elements in favor of assigning this production to the group of adventure games, especially the old-fashioned “point and click”. We spend the vast majority of our time here carefully searching the places we visit in search of interactive objects or characters. Therefore, it will be necessary to be perceptive, and sometimes also the most ordinary stubbornness and methodology in conducting searches, because some important items are located at very non-obvious points. As in many late-last-century titles, numerous puzzles come down to the well-known pattern of “collect everything you can collect, then figure out where to use these gadgets or combine them with something else.” Beautiful Desolation in fact, it rarely deviates from such solutions, but, contrary to appearances, it will not make the moments spent with the game unpleasant – it is easy to get used to it, get involved in the story and feel satisfaction with each subsequent puzzle solved.

One of a kind adventure

As I mentioned in the introduction, it is the world presented and the plot presented to us that constitute the strongest side of the new work of The Brotherhood Games studio. Here we get a short glimpse of “retrofuturistic” sci-fi (the appearance of Penrose in modern times by Mark Leslie), on the basis of which the post-apocalyptic world of the future, saturated with motifs derived from the folklore of black African peoples, grows. This is undoubtedly a very fresh look – if any of you immediately thought about the Fallout series when you first mention a retro-futuristic post-apo , I hasten to explain that it was a shot at the fence.

The (of course, incomplete) extermination of humanity and the topic of social reform soon after it, over which many universes were bent over, headed by Fallouthere is only the background. In the 1980s, from which our heroes are derived, no apocalypse has yet taken place, and in the world of the future we are examining, it is a distant past, about which little is known for sure. Here we discover a world with a rich history that has grown up over the millennia after a mysterious cataclysm, as if our own reality, whose ambassadors are the protagonists, was only a dream. We will be able to travel through numerous, extremely picturesque locations with an unforgettable, unique atmosphere and get to know very diverse peoples living in this crazy version of the Black Continent.

Here we find another point of contact with cRPG titles, because many times we will deal here with several interdependent “camps” to which we will come as an impartial outsider. Of course, as the plot unfolds, we will become embroiled in their conflict, rivalry, or whatever else the groups have in common, and then we will have to assume the role of a mediator or, on the contrary, a declared ally of one of the parties. In this respect, the storyline is also not disappointing – these feuds are intriguing and complex enough to genuinely engage the player, and the final choice is never morally unambiguous. Sometimes we can even make a decision motivated by noble reasons, and then regret it, because we have misinterpreted the situation and supported the wrong ones.

Focus and take notes, or you will end up with your nose in an online tutorial

The old-school charm of Beautiful Desolation consists of one more important factor – this production does not lead anyone by the hand. Riddles, dialogues and many side elements of the presented world should be constantly paid attention to, because without it we can easily get lost. There is no classic log of tasks here, no clear lore of this universe, nothing like that. Forgot who Chiznyama are or where you met a character named Atum? Your problem. The only thing you can do is listen to the dialogues you have made again on the PDA or search the available locations at random. Of course, the latter solution is unfortunately not very effective, especially in the later stages of the game.

I have looked for help on Google several times, even though I always play carefully and have a good memory for seemingly insignificant details. Beautiful Desolation is supposed to be a challenge for its audience – and it really is. Some puzzles become obvious only after you solve them, while others have different “hooks”. They are, for example, so long in time that the item necessary to complete their next stage has been in our inventory for so long that we have already forgotten about it, so now we are wondering why we do not find anything useful in the newest locations.

It is a wilderness indeed

Both the graphics and sound cannot be faulted. The traversed landscapes are really pretty… in their bizarre and sometimes disturbing way. You can see immediately that the creators put a lot of effort into them – you want to visit the next areas, if only for the satisfaction of looking at them, if not out of pure curiosity, what a surprising idea is waiting for us around the next corner.

The ears also have plenty to enjoy. The soundtrack is quite pleasant, and some of the songs break through to the consciousness so much that we let Marek stop once in a while, and direct our undistracted attention to this or that particularly interesting musical theme. The voice actors responsible for voice acting also did a great job – we will encounter both a wealth of interesting accents and a far-reaching commitment to playing the characters. If you want to know what a talking creeper, a swarm of collective-conscious nanobots or a semi-crazy organic train would sound like, then fire up Beautiful Desolation!