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Beautiful, Immersive, but very short-lived | Full Review - Tron: Identity

2K View2023-04-13

Tron: Identity is a visual novel adventure game set in the world of Tron, where players play in the role of Query, a detective program tasked to investigate a mysterious situation.

🟩Pros

+amazing interactive storytelling

+choices matter and branching out story for replayability

+a dedicated game mode for the puzzle element

+lots of accessibility options: skip puzzles, increase UI text, etc.

🟥Cons

-very, very short

The game is set in The Repository, a huge imposing bank of sorts for these programs. More specifically, a memory bank that houses hundreds of “cycles” of history and thousands of citizens. Something big has happened here, and our player character has been called by someone from here to investigate.

Beautiful story and art style

Immediately from the start, I was hooked by the amazing storytelling and beautiful 2D visual novel art-style with 3D parallax and neon-light effects. There is no voice acting, and the game is purely read by the player — which is even more impressive that I got compelled by that much. Since the game is heavy on reading, I find it convenient that the game offers UI text scaling, and I immediately ramped it up to high so my deteriorating eyes can see it better. The game also supports controllers on PCs so that’s a big plus.

Upon approaching the repository, we are welcomed by Grish, an enforcer of the building and right from the get go, the game asks for our choices on how to react with the first character that we meet. The game will clearly state any paths that you will take and whenever it affects a sequence that will happen down the line, making the branches well structured and easily understood by the player.

Captures what it’s like to be participating in an interactive novel

The storytelling method is akin to reading a novel or a book. With honest to goodness expressive narration that helps sell the scene to the players, dialogues that are well written, giving characters personality and making the plot highly interesting. Everything is narrated, the background scenery, the character’s reactions and gestures, even their demeanor is properly communicated to the player. In fact, if there was voice acting, you can probably play this with your eyes closed. The narration and dialogue is that well crafted.

Storytelling accessibility options

Players can manually skip the dialogue, as well as view the chat log for some things you might have accidentally missed as well as a Codex option to learn more about the world’s lore, which is a pretty nice accessibility option. Players can also let the dialogue auto-play for a hands free experience — that is until there is a choice to be made.

Every now and then, a choice will be presented to the player and these choices will matter. Characters can become friends or allies, die or not, help you or not. Making the experience highly immersive and interactive. And speaking of interactiveness, Tron: Identity features a unique and singular puzzle mechanic that is used throughout the story, and as well as the separate dedicated game mode for playing it exclusively.

There is only one type of puzzle in the game

The only puzzle element of Tron: Identity comprises the disc-defragging Puzzle element that is performed to unlock the memories of other characters, who are somehow suffering from memory loss for an unknown reason. Players will need to reduce the number of cards by pairing them with the same shapes or numbers to eliminate them, while constantly circumventing the many erratic cards that will pose an additional challenge. For those who want to truly focus on the narrative, or are having difficulty with a specific puzzle, they may opt to skip these puzzles at no cost. Another win as far as accessibility goes.

Ultimately, this puzzling element throughout the main story only serves as a tutorial of sorts to the entirely separate game mode which focuses on endlessly solving puzzles, where the game shifts the focus on being a narrative adventure game into a pure puzzle one.

Surprising game length

To my surprise, after playing for just TWO hours, Tron: Identity ended abruptly. The choices I made have indeed mattered, but not in the scale or magnitude that I had hoped, nor in the resolution that I expected for a game that is ending. In the aforementioned Codex, there are indeed branches for the different characters that you can take. Encouraging you to play more to know more, so the two hour playtime isn’t the end-all, but for a single playthrough, two hours is a bit too short, especially for the asking price of $15.

Conclusion:

Tron: Identity is a beautiful narrative experience that captures what it’s like to be participating in an interactive novel, immersing you in a thrilling digital world of adventure and intrigue. It is an extremely short-lived experience, only prolonged by its limited replayability in the form of branching story lines, so the asking price might be a bit too high for the general audience. I’d recommend only getting it while discounted, or if you are a big fan of the Tron franchise.

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