As far as grabbing my attention goes, Return to Grace does a lot of things right…
1. A short science fiction story along the lines of an abandoned complex and a long dormant AI
2. Graphics which give off a total Bioshock vibe
3. Puzzles which (so far) fit in with the game rather than being shoe-horned in
4. Free on Gamepass
and so, when faced with a couple of evenings when diving deep into New Eden in Banishers wasn’t going to be an option, I downloaded the game and started my journey.
March 4th
Very early steps, I intended to just play maybe 15 minutes to start off and got way further into the game than I had expected to.
You play Adie who has learnt of a sort of supreme construct called Grace that used to control a lot of human life, who went offline many years ago and has since drifted into virtual legend… there are no written records of Grace’s existence (as Grace controlled all physical records) and she has spent years studying artefacts and listening to what few audio records remain, to learn the supposed whereabouts of Grace’s physical location.
Accompanied by Allen her AI companion (worn on the wrist, this is what Apple watches will mutate into) she crash-lands on Ganymede (one of Jupiter’s Moons is I remember my schooling correctly) and sets out to find Grace.
Which is where you come in, controlling Adie as she first finds and then explores a now dormant and abandoned facility on a cold, harsh, moonscape.
Practically as soon as she enters Allen is replaced by a new AI, who refers to herself as Logic… later you will also encounter the AI named Control and another Empathy (there may be more, I’m still in the early days) who all operate various functions of the facility… Logic attempts to assist you, Control demands you leave and Empathy is currently working on restarting the Life Support systems so you don’t die.
From what I’ve seen this will require a couple of runs, one following Control’s instructions instantly (rather than wandering off and examining other items) which will be a second, most likely shorter, run once I’ve done searching every nook and cranny.
Small quandary… among the criteria when I score these games is for the characters within, a game like Gris is exempt as there was just the one, whereas Lake had a couple of interesting characters it was populated by bland personas so scored just 2 (out of 5) as this… well… the “characters” as it were, are just the voices of the AI components of Grace… does that really make them characters?
With it being a Gamepass title, I’m also using the game, as a whole, to milk the daily Achievement task and (hopefully) the “Quest Completionist” task for monthly reward points… so the next several sessions make be brief 10 minute bursts to unlock an Achievement, so my usual dated updates would be out of keeping for this one.
March 17th
After a week or so of short bursts to pop an Achievement and keep the Reward Points ticking over I’m near the end game and preparing for the second run… sometimes it annoys me when a complete second run is needed, such as with banishers where I need to replay around 30 hours (rough estimate) to pop the final Achievements needed for completion, but with this being a 2-3 hour game max, a streamlined second play isn’t that much of an issue.
Like many games of this type the story is played out and revealed slowly… in this case as Grace went offline all the Pilgrims who had come to visit rioted, the Keeper who was previously in a position of power and respected by all, is now hunted down by the Pilgrims who have blamed him.
I’m currently outside in a storm climbing to the final location (at least I think it’s the final location) for the first ending… after that I’ll wait until the weekend and do the second run in a single sitting rather than stretching it out over a few days.
March 20th
All done… second run completed, all Achievements popped and a sense of satisfaction… this was a game worth playing.
Of the two endings, the first one I reached was considered the “good” ending, all of Grace’s circuits have been restored and her personality is a bend of all the AI’s that you’ve communicated with throughout the game… which could have been improved on a little, one of these is barely used at all… only really being needed at one point in the game after which they get forgotten somewhat.
In this ending Grace explains why she shut down and why you’ll be an excellent Keeper (the Keeper being the person who acts as a voice for Grace and those who make the pilgrimage to the centre.
In the other ending, the “bad” ending something didn’t really make sense… the more dominant AI you talk to, Control, offers to assist you if you throw your communicator away, which the game seems to imply also means throwing away the other AI voices, Logic, Empathy and so on… but that wouldn’t make any sense… and you’re left feeling a little confused.
You raise the beacons to alert the universe to Grace’s return, but it seems to imply the only portion of her that would have any say in the matter would be Control themselves.
Either way, this is a small gripe… on the Indie Fest scoring this ended up at 78% overall… the AI characters are all pretty good, but one is used just once making it an almost after thought to include it, unlike the others it doesn’t chime in for the rest of the game and the one task it is used for could have been handled by the others… still puts it second thus far on my Indie games for the year.