Winter Voices Review (PC)

The slow-moving and text-heavy adventure Winter Voices from Beyond the Pillars, really takes some focus and determination to play through. While some parts of the game are voiced, many conversations, which are a large portion of the game, are text-only and force you to do a lot of reading. Add to that the atmospheric (and repetitive) soundtrack and you’ve got the makings of a bedtime story.

You take on the role of a 24-year-old woman, no discussion or other options, but you do get to do some minor customization. The story opens in the strange village your character lives in when her father dies and memories come back to haunt you. Literally, they come and do what appears to be psychic damage to you in turn-based combat. However, there’s little jeopardy because if they overcome you in a battle, you simply move on and don’t get as much experience points as you would if you had won. So really, there’s no way to fail.

After your father dies and you watch his funeral pyre burn you must now, suddenly, go out into the world and fend for yourself. It’s really a strange story overall and like I said it takes some concentration to remain focused on what’s happening and how to continually proceed. The game gives you quests, which for quite some time, are extremely boring like go talk to this person or see that person.

This is where all those long text conversations they expect you to read come in. I generally just clicked through them with only a modicum of skimming so that I could choose some semi-appropriate answer. I believe that there is some experience point system based on how long you manage to drag out the conversation but I wasn’t all that interested in finding out if that was exactly the deal or not.