State of Mind is a story about the separation of body and mind. It puts players in control of multiple characters (although mostly as Richard Nolan and Adam Newman) in a mind-bending linear sci-fi story about a man trying to find his wife and son. The near future (2048) setting sees Richard, a journalist who works for West Berlin’s biggest news outlet, The Voice, waking up in a hospital, confused and uncertain about recent events that put him there. He’s told it was due to a car accident, and after answering a few questions, he’s released to head back to his apartment. Upon arrival, he finds his wife and son missing, but an advanced bot, Simon, there instead, much to Richard’s chagrin.
I have to admit, I couldn’t gel with this character at all. Richard came across as one of the most dis-likeable characters I have ever played as. There are some elements to his character that are shown early and often, and more damning ones revealed later that I won’t spoil for you. Suffice it to say that I never grew invested in Richard and, as such, it made the entire experience harder to enjoy. Richard’s counterpart in a VR world known as City5, Adam, was also hard to relate to and “like,” and so I found myself stuck in a story that, at the outset (i.e., before playing the game) I was intrigued by, but I soon realized I might instead be in for a slow grind.
That’s not to say State of Mind wasn’t worth playing through once, it was, but I’ll admit were it much longer or if progression weren’t so constant, it would have been tough to keep going. The experience gets off to a slow burn, which is perfectly fine if the experience recovers, but State of Mind just sort of flat-lined for me. The scope of the world is actually quite small and limited, whether playing as Richard in 2048 West Berlin or as Adam in the VR world of City5. In each case you have an apartment with several rooms, a workplace, and two or three other locations, but they’re all small and largely devoid of anything interesting. NPCs seem lifeless and most of them offer zero interaction, along with most of the rest of the game world. Thankfully, both characters have an AR that marks all objects that you can actually Examine or Interact with. The large green triangles are bit over the top, and pressing Examine too close to an object or person can result in the text box that shows up as being too close and difficult to read without adjusting the character’s position. I liked these markers in general though because they sped up the pace of the game. This dystopian, big city, rainy, Blade Runner, cyberpunk setting that most of the game is played in can be done and done well, but in State of Mind, it just felt too generic and flat to hold any secrets, intrigue, or interest.
There isn’t a great deal to do in State of Mind. Locating those objects of interest is obviously key, and there is little reason and “stuff” to look at or do otherwise anyway. When you approach a marker, you’re always given the option to press Square to Examine it, but doing the Examine is never required. For those items you can Interact with, the majority of which are required to advance the story, you can do so immediately. Honestly, towards the final parts of the game, I found myself simply running up to each such object and pressing X immediately, realzing that a) no harm could come of this and b) it was probably necessary to advance the game further. By this point, I was fatigued of the characters and the story had become diluted and convoluted enough I just wasn’t into it.
I think the story could have been more interesting had the characters and the game world not been so either unlikeable or uninspired. Yet, I applaud Daedalic for weaving what is, at times in spite of itself, an interesting story overall, just one I thought was poorly told. Playing through it exacerbates this in that, as described above, it’s mostly about going from A to B and pressing X. Several mini-games break up what is largely a walking sim. With Richard, you will have to reconstruct data fragments of a previous memory, which are represented as a 360 degree room sliced into eight or so pieces. The idea is to closely inspect the room as you cycle through five or so different options per slice to make a complete image or memory (simply looking at the floor to sync it up makes this easy). Other times, you will have to fly a drone around in the third person, navigating through air ducts or moving a few boxes. Hacking cameras during a subway scene is painfully generic and silly. Conversations with NPCs typically offer two options, summarized with a word, but neither option seemed to change the outcome of what happened next. As far as presentation, I kind of liked the blocky look of the characters, reminding me of Virtua Fighter. Animations are alright, but in general the game world has a dated, flat look to go along with its feel. While running in 4K, the art direction isn’t remarkable. Similarly, voice-acting, music, and effects are ok, but not stellar.
In sum, it seems like the vision of State of Mind was bigger and more robust than its end result. The core idea is interesting, but the execution fizzles out early and doesn’t recover. Still, if you’re into sci-fi and are looking for a game to roll through on a lazy Saturday, you could do worse than State of Mind.
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