Past Cure

 PlayStation 4
User Score
4.7

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 52 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 52
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 52
  3. Negative: 30 out of 52
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  1. GBG_Jason
    Feb 23, 2018
    3
    As someone who grew up with the Silent Hill franchise and was heartbroken with Konami’s decision to can the newest installment a few years back, I was thrilled when I started Past Cure. Opening in a dilapidated building with the majority of the furniture hanging from the ceiling and beautifully rendered debris floating through the air, nostalgia hit me pretty hard. After a brief period ofAs someone who grew up with the Silent Hill franchise and was heartbroken with Konami’s decision to can the newest installment a few years back, I was thrilled when I started Past Cure. Opening in a dilapidated building with the majority of the furniture hanging from the ceiling and beautifully rendered debris floating through the air, nostalgia hit me pretty hard. After a brief period of exploration and arming myself with a pistol, I faced the first enemy, a white nude man who resembled the Architect from the film Prometheus. Not only did he resemble the antagonist, he promptly picked me up and curb stomped me American History X style. My next attempt at battling the unnamed assailant resulted in him shattering into a million pieces, as the type of enemy is comprised of what appears to be porcelain. Further exploration greeted me with strange red doors that would open, yielding more of these jerks, which got my adrenaline pumping since our protagonist wasn’t the best at gun play. I assumed this was a mechanic similar to Silent Hill tasking an everyday Joe to fight for his life out of nowhere. Sadly, I was wrong and this is where the joy stopped.

    Upon completing the opening level, you’ll wake up in a lavish mansion in the middle of nowhere. Contrary to what I initially thought, he is a trained killer who was part of a government operation that granted him super powers and is currently in hiding after losing 3 years of his memory. You’ll spend the next few hours (if you make it that far) trying to piece together his fractured memory. The story, while not overly well written, intrigued me; however, the game quickly falls apart at this point, much like our porcelain antagonists. You’ll run through a brief tutorial which teaches you the ins and outs of combat as well as using his paranormal abilities. Ian can project himself out of his mind and float around outside of his body, allowing him to interact with certain items or slow down time. These are timed abilities that will recharge and can be refilled by taking the medication he is given to maintain his sanity. Using the abilities too often will result in Ian going insane and the game’s visuals appear to glitch to the point that you cannot function. Sadly, these abilities cannot be upgraded in any way and the abilities drain very quickly in the normal game mode. Dropping the difficulty down to easy does make them slightly more efficient, but not by much. These mechanics are not remotely new to the gaming world, and have been executed much more effectively in other titles.

    The overall presentation of the game is lackluster. While the initial levels offer visuals that are on par with this console generation, most of the character models are extremely mediocre and the environments slowly begin to revert to PS2 levels of detail. I enjoyed the opening level in addition to wandering throughout the mansion, but the following levels looked comparable to Max Payne 2. Ian, as well as the other characters, feature facial animations that reminded me of the flat faces featured on Goldeneye 64. The voice acting is not much better, which sounds like it was written and performed by Tommy Wiseau.

    As I mentioned previously, the gunplay is awful but manageable; however, the melee combat is not. This consists of mashing face buttons or performing quick time events that flash so quickly you don’t have time to react. This will be an issue regularly, as the enemies you face in the middle of the game (which I am assuming are modeled after the Agent’s from The Matrix) take multiple bullets to the head with a hilarious amount of blood, and continue to run head first into you and attack you with their fists. Taking cover during firefights is often a chore, as the cover system present is a nightmare to deal with. While you can crouch or run, switching between them to change cover is a mess and I would often still take fire through the car or other set pieces you hide behind. All of this, coupled with the AI’s pinpoint accuracy meant death came often. While there are plenty of mid mission checkpoints, their placement is awful; most require the player to traverse long distances and watch cut scenes again to get back into the game.

    The stealth sections do not fare much better, especially when the mechanic is required. Around the midpoint of the game, I was tasked with pickpocketing a keycard from a hotel staff member. With narrow corridors that provided minimal cover, there were no less than 5 enemies present at any given point and no matter which route I took, either a camera or guard would spot me, resulting in a game over screen.

    Past Cure starts out as a very promising title, but quickly falls apart and comes across as a game that has some great ideas but is plagued by mechanics being shoehorned in throughout. While we were informed that a day one patch was to be released to fix a number of issues (none of which included    … Expand
  2. C3realkillah
    Feb 23, 2018
    4
    Past cure review

    "Well i beat the game and it as Probablly one of the most underwhelming disappointing games I've ever played and i have played ALOT of games. It's not bad per se just very generic and kind of a slog to get through and It's not even that long either. When you beat it you will more Likely be confused and disappointed. Graphics: the graphics are decent a little plain    Past cure review

    "Well i beat the game and it as Probablly one of the most underwhelming disappointing games I've ever played and i have played ALOT of games. It's not bad per se just very generic and kind of a slog to get through and It's not even that long either. When you beat it you will more Likely be confused and disappointed.

    Graphics: the graphics are decent a little plain looking but not horrible. Characters model look ok aside from the very few enemy variety. Some muddy textures and screen tearing here and there but far from the worst thing about this game

    Sound: ok the guns and sound effects are pretty good, music is ok if forgettable. The voice acting however is atrocious. I swear at times it sounds like voice actors spoke lines through an old telephone or old communicator it sounds horrible. The voice acting for the characters is also quite bad and there are no emotions in the voices.

    Story: the story makes no **** sense. Nothing gets explained, it's so full of plotholes and throwaway characters. Nothing feels important and when things try to get interesting the writing and dialogue just pull you out of the experience. Terrible story overall

    Gameplay: it's ok and works but it's generic and clunky. Headshots don't connect all the time and enemies can feel bullet spongy. The ai is spotty mostly dumb with the occasional "all seeing eye" here and there. The game is broken up into parts 3rd person shooter/stealth and part survival horror/puzzle
    The shooter/stealth parts are generic and kind of boring especially the damn car park level where everything looks the same. You can use stealth, sneak attack enemies, shoot/melee your way through levels or use your astral projection to disable cameras and stealth through levels but going guns blazing works too (except
    one level where you have to use stealth or be auto failed over and over). The survival horror part is the best in the game but it's over too soon and avoiding enemies is incredibly easy especially with the time manipulation ability. Though there aren't many,Puzzles are generic and easy but not bad.

    Performance: very poor. The game crashed on me multiple times especially near the end where i had to restart boss battles or difficult stealth sections which really pissed me off and took me out of the game. I even got stuck on random objects in the level which i had to restart, but the worse part is defintely the crashes. Some framerate drops here and there but nothing too bad surprisngly. Overall very poor performance. I know it's an indie but there is no reason for the game to have this many problems in performance. Maybe the developers can remedy these in a patch but i doub't they care enough despite the closing comment before the credits.

    Conclusion: this game really disappointed me. I really wanted to like it because of it's cool concept but the performance problems, generic gameplay, boring level design, annoying stealth section and short length prevent it from being as good as trailers made it seem. It's not the worst game I ever played or even one of the worst but it's far from good and I can't recommend it because of these major faults. I commend the developers for trying but it just didn't work out. What we're left is with a generic badly written action horror game that is a chore to play through and not worth the $29.99 asking price. Hopefully the developers learn from their mistakes if they decide to make a sequel or a whole other ip.

    4/10

    TL;DR

    A generic game that is badly written, performs terribly, and just isn't fun to play. It has good ideas and a nice concept but lackluster gameplay and short length add to the myriad of problems past cure has, not recommended.    … Expand
  3. MC2411
    Feb 24, 2018
    4
    The only good thing are the music in some points, puzzles and the closed enviroment in chapter 6, the action gameplay it's barely enjoyable, the graphics like ps3 at most, the story it's totally unclear and open, and if there is something original, i didn't saw it. Unless they acquire a better mechanism for graphics and gameplay and better ideas in the script, Phantom 8 should work withThe only good thing are the music in some points, puzzles and the closed enviroment in chapter 6, the action gameplay it's barely enjoyable, the graphics like ps3 at most, the story it's totally unclear and open, and if there is something original, i didn't saw it. Unless they acquire a better mechanism for graphics and gameplay and better ideas in the script, Phantom 8 should work with puzzles games and with an impotent protagonist because that's the only think enjoyable.… Expand
  4. Quink666
    Feb 23, 2018
    3
    No, just no. Was so hyped for this game after watching the trailers a few months back. But the game is nothing like the trailer. The story is dull and sometimes confusing as hell. The gameplay is horrid and the controls are even worse.
    Plz save your hard earned money and spend the 30 bucks on something more pleasant like a colonic.

    3/10
  5. Dbo
    Feb 23, 2018
    1
    I realize that a small indie team made this game with a low budget. But if 1000 people take a crap in the toilet or if 8 people take a crap in the toilet, it still smells like crap. And to charge 30 bucks for this crap is a frikin joke. Do not waste your money or time on this game! You will regret it.
  6. TheLastofMe
    Aug 6, 2019
    3
    It’s always tempting to give independent development studios a bit of slack: No one wants to put off the little guys after all, but when this mess is placed against work by the likes of Reakktor, Studio, Wildcard and Harebrained Schemes, I can’t help but think maybe £24.99 would be better spent elsewhere.
  7. Nomax
    Apr 22, 2020
    1
    Я конечно понимаю что это инди проект, но игру гробит её дичайше корявое управление и боёвка!!!!

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
37

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 22
  3. Negative: 15 out of 22
  1. GameGrin
    May 22, 2018
    30
    I’ve read scarier issues of the Beano in this clunky, buggy mess of a wanna be Deadly Premonition.
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  2. Worth Playing
    Apr 16, 2018
    35
    Past Cure is many things: technically infuriating, a slog, and thematically inconsistent. While one can appreciate the effort of a small team trying to craft a game that does many things, it can't seem to do any of them well enough to warrant any attention. With a glut of better games that tackle similar elements on the platform, it's very difficult to recommend Past Cure to people, even as a quick diversion.
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  3. Meristation
    Apr 5, 2018
    30
    We find few reasons to recommend Past Cure. It is quite far from what is expected of a video game: having fun with it.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »