LogFAQs > #965785247

Bear With Me: Collector's Edition (PC)

I've heard things about this game's ending. Nothing specific. Just how it ends. And the whole twist of it. That's all I knew going into this and well. When I saw the twist coming as early as halfway into the game, I really dreaded that it was coming to that.

Bear With Me bills itself as noir first and foremost and it does it well enough. Checks all the boxes and hits familiar beats. But then it had to hybrid itself with some horror as well, which is incidentally downplayed. I wish it didn't have to add that honestly once you see the reveal coming, as it diminished what made the mystery portion great. In the end, it wasn't about solving the case so much as it was a story about a girl who had to deal with some things in the guise of a mysterious case. Which is a shame as this setup had some amazing ideas going for it that could've been explored better. But with the way it ends, there is certainly nothing coming back from that.

Make no mistake though, this is noir in its purest form and honestly you should just skip the game and watch the story. I haven't seen some monologuing like this since Max Payne. Its all so charming too seeing as it takes place in the imagination of a child.

Okay I've done my best not to spoil it for you. Now I will talk about it. So you can stop reading past this point if you want to enjoy a nice little noir adventure.

The main reveal is that the girl Amber is the creator of the setting and all its inhabitants but a trauma has relegated her into having amnesia. This trauma is played for horror and doesn't truly come into play until the final act when the game suddenly drops the noir in favor of some Fran Bow-esque introspection. But. This reveal isn't played for Cosmic Horror. Even when its revealed that Amber is basically a demigod in this world, there is no sense of impending doom for its world and in fact how this world exists is never explained. They might as well be two separate realms (and the creator confirms this). I thought it was the right move, and it didn't displace the greater portion of the game as a means of irrelevant fantasy. By the end it was still very much about the noir and the horror was downplayed. But. I still preferred it shouldn't have existed at all.

Game's decent. Puzzles are decent. Music is fine. And the part many probably will gripe about is the amount of 4th wall breaking references and jokes made both in and out of character which to me is fine seeing as this whole thing is played in the imagination of a child. But if you don't like that kind of cheesy humor then you probably might not like this game unless you're really into the noir of things.

There was also a dlc included which was a prequel starring the brother. And knowing what's to come even though it is barely touched here, it still saddens me. This is a good game for me and I wish it wasn't as slow and deliberate as it has a right to be so people wouldn't get bored so they can join me here where they get to see its ending. This is a hard suggest but if you're a point-click fan, it's adequate to say the least.