Well hello bright eyes…
Graphics: 8 (charming 16 bit graphics / thankfully very little pixel hunting)
Sounds: 8 (top voice acting)
Value 8 (a little too short for $5 however with achievements and commentary added it's quite a decent package)
Tilt: 9 (threw me off guard with its maturity)
Actual score: 8.3
That's a quote from Joey, a ghost you will meet and serves as your partner in life; whether you like it or not. However I won't go into details how or why this ghost seems to be 'attracted' to the main character Rosa (I leave that for you to discover) yet what I can certainly say is that, besides the charming graphics and seemly 'childish' appearance, it's actually quite a mature game and a storyline that can easily hook you until the end.
It's very hard to explain what the premise is without going into spoilers however if I can summarise this up in a sentence, it's about a student committed suicide near her dorm and you (Rosa), being a writer, was practically ordered by her boss to go and investigate. However what I can tell you that there's more sinister forces behind this unfortunate suicide.
Blackwell Legacy has been created by a clever use of an adventure gaming software called the 'Adventure Game Studio' (or AGS). This software made many adventure games in the past that I feel pays homage to the old school style of adventure gaming; that is point-and-click with inventory management all viewed in that 16 bit style.
Yet in Blackwell Legacy, there's very little of inventory management and puzzle solving however it's more concentrated on conversations. That is, when Rosa gains insights via her conversations with other folks, she jots them down in her 'notepad' that acts like a checklist. However this time she can also join up sentences to form further hints / questions for Rosa to ask. So the way I look at it, this is the inventory management / puzzle solving 'replacement'.
Another unexpected feature in this game, it has fully supported voice acting and musical scores. Whilst the music is average at best, the voice acting is actually quite impressive. With great dialogues to match, I'm glad developers Wadjet Eye Games decided to grab decent actors as considering it's a 'husband / wife' project, I'm very impressed with the quality.
An average gamer should be able to complete this approximately within five hours but with a price of around $5 (or like me bought it during the Steam sales) it's not all that bad. And as an added bonus of collecting eight achievements (and some are an easy miss so be careful when selecting your response) and you can play it again with commentary on, I feel it's a decent little package.
As mentioned before, Blackwell Legacy caught me totally off guard with its storytelling and decent pacing. Believe it or not, the themes are quite mature for this style of game and there are some surprises along the way. Great characters and charming graphics (especially when Rosa smiles after a poor attempt to crack a joke) don't let this one slip away from your radar.