I love learning more about history, regardless of whether or not it’s connected to my own culture. The Japanese Sengoku Period, World War II, The Crusades – I don’t care what it is, I just love to know how all these important events from the past shaped the world we now live in. One subject I have frequently neglected, however, is American history, which just so happens to be an important theme in today’s game.
Whispering Willows released on Ouya back in May and was then ported over to Windows, Mac and Linux earlier this month. It follows a young girl called Elena Elkhorn whose roots lie in a Native American tribe that lived in the area before western settlers arrived to claim the land. She practices basic shamanism with her father who works as the groundskeeper of a historic mansion that was once inhabited by the founder of the city, Wortham Williams. As the game starts, we learn that Elena’s father has gone missing and she believes that he has been captured by evil spirits, so she grabs her belongings and heads out to save him.
The biggest selling point of the game is that Elena has a pendant that allows her to separate her spirit from her body in order to better explore the areas around her, solve puzzles, and interact with other ghosts. Through this pendant, you quickly discover that there are some dark secrets surrounding the mansion that are unknown to the general populace. Most of the game has you trying to get closer to the top of the building, but on your way you meet various characters whose stories are intertwined with a tragic event that occurred years ago. You will have to help them find solace and cross over to the other side before you can proceed with your own goal.
Usually, helping these spirits involves finding some items for them by following the vague hints they give you, which is easy enough to do, but I kind of hoped the puzzles would be a little more complex. I love puzzle games, as evidenced by my insane Zelda collection, but I am also not that good at them, so I was surprised when two and a half hours into Whispering Willows, I was looking at the credits sequence. Every puzzle I encountered was easily solved by messing with whatever item I could possess while in ghost form (they have a blue radiance around them, so they can’t be missed) or by adjusting a puzzle item until it’s in the same position as shown in a nearby painting. One puzzle in the observatory is the most blatant example of the latter, as you need to look through a telescope and draw an image by connecting the stars with lines, but the exact image you need, stars included, are shown on a drawing right next to it.
When separated from her body, Elena can fly through tight spaces to reach areas where she can’t physically go; from a gameplay perspective, I feel opportunities are missed to do more with the theme of leaving your body behind. This was especially noticeable during sequences where Elena loses the ability to leave her body, and we are supposed to feel more fragile, but since using the shamanistic powers comes into play so rarely, I quickly forgot something had changed. There was no urgency.
I also dislike how slow the standard movement speed is, as you frequently need to traverse the entire map to get to another area, and Elena can never be persuaded into taking a sprint aside from a few parts where monsters show up. These enemies tend to chase or ambush Elena during these segments, she does actually run at a decent pace, which made these rare moments quite entertaining and memorable.
The mansion itself is entertaining to explore, with multiple buildings and sufficient amounts of variety. There is a greenhouse, mausoleum, the aforementioned observatory and even a large garden, which all have their own puzzles and stories to discover. The art-style also gets to shine here, because all the characters and locales look beautiful. The design of the many ghosts you meet is particularly neat, as all of them have wounds that show you how they were presumably killed.
Via exploration, you also have a chance of running into a variety of notes, which are first-hand recordings of the events that transpired during the time of Wortham Williams from various viewpoints. These are usually out in the open, but they look quite natural in the environment, so you have to stay alert in order to notice them. While you can also get some achievements for interacting with some specific items in the world, usually logos from companies or referential nonsense, I found these notes to be a lot more worthy of my time, as they were fun to read and sometimes contained interesting hints.
The music and sound-effects are atmospheric, but no track really stood out to me, aside from a few that play during chase sequences. There is also some voice-acting for Elena, but this is limited to just reactional noises when you interact with stuff in the environment, which I felt was a bit of a shame, but understandable considering it’s an indie title.
A puzzle game with easy puzzles may be a difficult sell, but I enjoyed the story and the way it’s told, so I am willing to forgive the game for not having the most stellar riddles for me to conquer. The art-direction is also quite neat and, barring some minor annoyances, I had a really good, but remarkably short time with the game. The average player can probably get through this game in two hours, and the collectible notes and achievements for interacting with random items probably won’t interest many, so the asking price of $15 is a bit steep. I would therefore sooner recommend the game to inexperienced puzzlers and those looking for a good story about Native American folklore.
(7 / 10)
Good
(7 / 10)
