Serena

 PC
User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 55 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 55
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 55
  3. Negative: 8 out of 55

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  1. Apoda
    Mar 2, 2014
    4
    First off: I think the concept of Serena is a good one. The graphics are suitable for a game like this and the fact that you can play the game for free is yet another reason to try it out for sure. Doing so I tried my best to enjoy playing Serena, or at least find it sufficiently entertaining. Alas, I found out pretty soon that I wouldn't make it to the end, even if that ending was just aFirst off: I think the concept of Serena is a good one. The graphics are suitable for a game like this and the fact that you can play the game for free is yet another reason to try it out for sure. Doing so I tried my best to enjoy playing Serena, or at least find it sufficiently entertaining. Alas, I found out pretty soon that I wouldn't make it to the end, even if that ending was just a small hour away.

    Why did I detach that quickly? Well, for starters because the voice acting was unbearable. Over acted in every sense of the word. The fact that you had to listen to the same lines over and over again didn't help either. Some voice recordings were not even filtered correctly, the mic buzz was noticeable.

    Much of the progress in the game was achieved without being notified about it in any way. This made the game feel very slow and stubborn. I've watched a walk-through on YouTube to see where the game would have taken me had I played it till the end: Good story, originally made up ending with a very nice surprise to it.

    Had the voice acting been (way) better, had the coding excluded the possibility of hearing the same spoken lines over and over again, then this would have been a great little horror experience. Good idea, bad implementation.    … Expand
  2. Sevvy88
    Aug 23, 2014
    4
    Extremely modern and pretentious. It borders on masturbatory. Even the genre on Metacritic begs my loathing "Modern". Yeah, alright.

    I'm the first to step up and say that video games need to start breaching more serious territory if they wish to be considered "art", but the main point of the medium should not be forgotten: to be a game. This game follows a trend of "artsy fartsy" games    Extremely modern and pretentious. It borders on masturbatory. Even the genre on Metacritic begs my loathing "Modern". Yeah, alright.

    I'm the first to step up and say that video games need to start breaching more serious territory if they wish to be considered "art", but the main point of the medium should not be forgotten: to be a game. This game follows a trend of "artsy fartsy" games on Steam that, frankly, would only entice the imagination of the clueless.

    The game is hardly a game at all, and what of its architecture that -IS- a game is horribly boring and dull.

    You cannot sacrifice your narrative for gameplay, a faux pas Blizzard constantly makes, but likewise, you cannot sacrifice your gameplay for narrative, especially when the narrative isn't a very good one. The voice acting of the main character is sometimes painfully awkward and feels artificial, like the actor is not really identifying with his scene.

    In the end the game tries way too hard and fails. The storytelling is boring, the graphics are offensively ugly, and the controls are pretty poor for a release on M/Kb in 2014.

    What potential the story could have had, and what level of "art" the game could have achieved is all but lost in a poor foundation for a game.

    Sorry, Serena!    … Expand
  3. wjomlex
    Jan 31, 2014
    4
    Why is there no menu? The balance between the dialogue volume and music volume is pretty bad. In a game that's all about ambience, it's important to have things tuned properly. Why doesn't hitting Esc give you a warning before quitting?

    Why can't I open the armoire earlier in the game? The narrator's reasons are weak and make it sound like the creators were hastily covering up something    Why is there no menu? The balance between the dialogue volume and music volume is pretty bad. In a game that's all about ambience, it's important to have things tuned properly. Why doesn't hitting Esc give you a warning before quitting?

    Why can't I open the armoire earlier in the game? The narrator's reasons are weak and make it sound like the creators were hastily covering up something missed during development.

    What kind of car uses a skeleton key like that?

    The voice acting is odd. Serena's lines are delivered awkwardly most of the time. Who refers to blood pressure as just "pressure"? The narrator's voice is all over the place. Sometimes his voice is perfect for the scene, and sometimes he expresses concern or anger for no apparent reason. And when he's legitimately angry, it's so over-the-top it's silly.

    The tone is all over the place. The books on the bookshelf are amusing, but they really ought not to be. Unless, of course, they changed with the mood like the poem on the wall... but they don't.

    There are some good ideas in here, but the execution really falls on its face. It just wasn't entertaining to play.    … Expand
  4. Xzenor
    Mar 4, 2020
    0
    This was terrible...
    H.P Lovecraft's story may have been great but this game just sucks. Good thing it's free but still a shame of the time I'll never get back.
  5. Demon2017
    Sep 21, 2022
    0
    Дрянь. Неинтересное позорище с пиксель хантингом. Избегайте эту игру

Critic Reviews

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Critic score distribution:
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  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 1 out of 1
  1. 4P.de
    Feb 12, 2014
    40
    The beginning is interesting, the storytelling experiment works well. But technical and design flaws make this tale terrifying for the wrong reasons.
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