This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
I picked up this game on Switch without looking into it much, hoping for a pleasant surprise. By the end, I was mostly disappointed.
The biggest flaw about this game is that it's supposed to be centered around empathizing with Quinn, the guy you are talking via text chat, but Stay makes that experience mostly unrewarding. The gameplay centers around helping him through this serial killer-esque house he's been trapped in for mysterious reasons. However, don't go into this looking for a mystery or even suspense, because it eventually turns out that nothing that's happening is real anyway, so therefore treating it like a real situation will only lead you to frustration.
Quinn is clearly very depressed, and that's something I can associate with. However, he is also the sort of rambling, pretentious person that you would only tolerate in this state if you had a fond personal history, or it was your job. As a complete stranger, he gives you little reason to want to navigate the tortured labyrinth of his mind. The main reason to stick by him is the raw moral obligation to try to save another human from being murdered or imprisoned, which is done despite who he is rather than because of it. Quinn goes on long, uninteresting rambles about philosophy, makes dozens of unnecessary book and media references, assuming you even know what he's talking about, and will randomly criticize you for not understanding him when you make innocuous suggestions. Overall, I found what will cause him to like you or dislike you a complete shot in the dark, and it's not like how much he trusts you actually affects anything in the game until the end, anyway.
It does realistically portray the kind of difficult to navigate conversations that comes up with talking to someone who is depressed, but there is a reason that most people are not happy to be dumped on with this stuff by total strangers. It would be difficult, even if you already knew and liked Quinn. Realistic or not, the writers need to give you a reason to keep playing the game. Still, i finished the game to see where it was going, though by the end I found myself scoffing out loud at a lot of the **** Quinn would say rather than being drawn in by it. Also, there is a 'fight' scene that happens where there are several dialogue choices where only one out of there choices results in anything other than death, and the game gives you little idea which is the right one. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't make you start from the beginning of the chapter every time you fail. One of the answers that you ARE required to pick to progress seems completely absurd, and I only came upon it by process of elimination.
A lot of the deaths that happen in this game are just completely random, and quite stupid. In one of them, he crawls into an obviously too-small vent and somehow manages to die instantly. In other, he tries to kick a door down, and the result is it spontaneously falling off its hinges (despite it functioning like a regular door in other paths) and crushes him, killing him instantly. Another, you suggest he put some tools into the appropriate places in a workshop, thinking it might be a puzzle, and a random tool falls off and kills him instantly. Another path has the suggestion that he find food to eat railroads you into death by touching a fridge that is electrified for some reason. If you tell him not to eat, however, he gets mad at you and scolds you for not having empathy. Then, if you tell him to open the fridge, he also gets mad at you.
Possibly this makes more sense if you take into account that nothing in the game is actually real and all seems to be some sort of metaphorical psychological journey that Quinn is going on. There is no actual kidnapper, and there is no actual house - it's all in Quinn's imagination. You are not real, and the entire thing functions on dream logic. So, don't expect realistic actions to result in realistic consequences.
One last thing: the puzzles are very hard and often rely on information that cannot be found in game. According to the devs, this was intentional, because they wanted you to feel as helpless as Quinn. While I can't say that I enjoyed all of the puzzles, and by the end I had mostly given up and just looked up a walkthrough for each one I didn't understand, I can see how such merciless puzzles may be rewarding and appealing for some people. It just wasn't for me, because I mostly just wanted to progress the story. So, take that as you will, since that could be a pro or a con depending on your tastes. One brick puzzle gives you nothing to work with what so ever and I still don't really know the logic behind the 'right' solution even after looking it up.
Overall, baffling narrative logic and Quinn's annoying dialogue were the biggest dealbreakers for me.… Expand
STAY (2018)Your Score0 out of 10User Score
