Twelve Minutes

 Switch
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 6 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 6
  3. Negative: 1 out of 6

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  1. nusco
    Dec 25, 2021
    7
    An interactive fiction mystery based on a 10 minutes time loop.

    PROS: COMPELLING MYSTERY: The story starts as a mundane slice of life, but it quickly grows into a violent mystery rooted into the characters' past. You'll want to sort it out (and die dozens of violent deaths in the process.) THE TIMELOOP HAS THE RIGHT LENGTH: There is, inevitably, some annoying repetition–but the    An interactive fiction mystery based on a 10 minutes time loop.

    PROS:

    COMPELLING MYSTERY: The story starts as a mundane slice of life, but it quickly grows into a violent mystery rooted into the characters' past. You'll want to sort it out (and die dozens of violent deaths in the process.)

    THE TIMELOOP HAS THE RIGHT LENGTH: There is, inevitably, some annoying repetition–but the fact that you'll complete each loop in ten minutes or less will keep you pushing.

    GOOD VOICE WORK: With Willem Dafoe on board, you'd expect great voice acting. It's actually not great, mostly because the script doesn't manage the character's emotions in quite the right way–but it's still good.

    CONS:

    LACKS DIRECTION: In interactive fiction, you can get stuck in different ways–some worse than others. In Twelve Minutes, sometimes you get stuck because you just don't have a proximate goal to reach. It doesn't last long when it happens, but it's still annoying to blindly try out actions and conversation options in hope to stumble on a way forward.

    WEAK ENDING: The game builds up nicely up to the last stretch–and then it deflates. The central twist dawns on you before it should, and it leads to a conclusion that doesn't feel satisfying.

    SOME IMPLAUSIBLE DIALOGUES: Some dialogues feel quite real, but others are cringey. Given the gameloop's brevity, it's hard to imagine how they could be any different, but they still damage the game's feeling.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
63

Mixed or average reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 4
  3. Negative: 1 out of 4
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    May 13, 2022
    60
    It's trial and error (and error, and error) until you complete the exact right sequence of moves to trigger a story continuation . . . for a story that is not really worth continuing at all. It's frustrating as a video game experience, giving you no real sense of payoff since the only thing you earn is a sense of regret for suffering through it all. [Issue #58 – March/April 2022, p. 27]
  2. Nintendo Life
    Jan 12, 2022
    40
    Ultimately, we found 12 Minutes to be a trite adventure that squanders its initial intrigue almost instantly. We can see how someone else might get a kick out of its star-studded silliness, but in a gaming landscape littered with time loop games, we found this one extremely tedious at best.
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  3. TouchArcade
    Dec 15, 2021
    70
    The main problems in Twelve Minutes are to do with how annoying it gets experiencing the loops after a certain point. Powering through multiple loops and repetition for an amazing story would be fine, but Twelve Minutes falters even in its narrative. The finale and most of the endings here had some very off the rails twists that I didn’t expect. These will make or break your overall experience. This isn’t like Danganronpa V3 either, but genuinely confusing in some ways depending on what ending you get. I’d only recommend playing Twelve Minutes on Nintendo Switch once it gets discounted. This is sadly one of the few Annapurna Interactive games that didn’t blow me away like most of the publisher’s catalog.
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