An incredibly stylish point-and-click adventure that uses a clue-collection system to tell a fascinating story
Phoenix Springs is a really interesting game. I knew it was throwing me for a loop when at the halfway point it becomes almost like a different game, which is completely intriguing if one is ready for it.
The game kind of markets itself as a next generation point-and-click adventure game. The difference between traditional games in the genre and this one is that here we collect clues and items via words. We have a word bank and use those words on things around us as we’re walking around. We can use those in conversations, like talking about a certain thing, learning about a certain thing, and then if that becomes a red herring or something that’s not important we’ll lose that item, that word to access going forward. We can discard these false leads and use the words to solve these logic-based design puzzles.
It’s aesthetically really cool looking. It looks like every set piece is art, like every screenshot is art. I love the feel of it. There are certain things you can do with adventure games that you can’t really do with action adventure. Phoenix Springs actively puts art and storytelling together with a sketch-like art style, and I love that mix. The UI is also minimal, so that the only time a menu pops up is if we press a button to open it, so there really isn’t anything distracting us.
It’s a very dark noir story about going back to our hometown, this eclectic hometown, to find our missing brother, Leo. It’s a compelling game with an almost Lynchian, Blue Velvet level of narrative that is around six hours long. Is it next generation? The game is good, but it still has the shortcomings of the genre before it: we still walk around and we still click on stuff, and still need to manage what items (words, in this case) we have available. The compelling story and visual style, though, are worthy enough of a trip back home.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on the October 20, 2024 episode of The SideQuest. Images and video courtesy the publisher.
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