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Sunset

Sunset

The latest game from Tale of Tales offers a deep and engaging narrative.

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It's clear that the indie scene is the most keen part of the games industry when it comes to experimentation, and perhaps it is also the most bold when it comes to narratives that explore intense and deep subjects.

These can be simple stories with rather basic mechanics merely meant to drag the player into an intriguing world, featuring characters equally fascinating. This is certainly the case with Sunset, the latest work by Belgian studio Tale of Tales (The Path), an adventure as beautiful as it is introspective. With the studio adorned with a name as ambitious as this (based on the eponymous novel by Giambattista Basile, and in the cinema with the new Matteo Garrone movie that's currently being shown at the Cannes Film Festival... coincidence?), the studio has put its great experience in narrative gaming into this little masterpiece. Sunset presents a story starring two characters as deep as they are different and the player has the opportunity to reflect on important issues and your role as a citizen in comtemporary society, themes like freedom of thought, the value of art, and democracy. But let's start from the beginning.

Sunset

You play as Angela Burnes, a young American tourist stuck at Anchuria - a fictional Latin American country - in the middle of a very important political and social conflict during the early '70s. Unable to leave the country due to a ban imposed by the new local dictator, Miraflores - a man who despises art, so much so that his troops have occupied some of the most important cultural buildings in the city - Angela, an engineer, is forced to make ends meet by working as housekeeper for a mysterious man called Gabriel Ortega, with a shift every day for an hour before sunset. A man of culture and passionate about art, Ortega begins to establish a strange friendship with Angela by mail. If at the very start Ortega merely leaves Angela instructions in the elevator regarding her duties and household chores, little by little he begins to discuss themes that gradually grow deeper and deeper via notes, something that brings Angela (and therefore us) to want to discover more and more details about this fascinating man, and about his personal history.

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The structure of Sunset is very simple: set in Gabriel Ortega's grand apartment, as Angela we have an hour (in fact, it corresponds to 30 real minutes) to carry out our chores and, little by little, discover new notes that Ortega left around the penthouse. We can choose to reply or not. Structured as a point-and-click adventure, almost all of our actions have an influence on the narrative and, of course, on our relationship with Ortega. We have two options: by selecting "Y" or the red button, our action will have an influence on the narrative and on our relationship with Ortega; if not, by selecting "N" or the blue button, the action will not have any kind of influence on what it is happening in the story.

In the brief window of time available to us before the sun sets, we can navigate the surroundings, admire the paintings that fill the apartment, find images that tell the story Ortega's life, read the titles of the many books that we can find in his big apartment, listening to music (from more sophisticated jazz to opera). In short, it's important to the experience to understand the political and cultural position of this man as it compares to the oppressive regime that threatens the nation. Throughout the experience we're accompanied by Angela's thoughts, which reflect on the current political and cultural situation of the country in which she is stuck, on her emotional involvement, but also on her mysterious correspondence with Ortega, a man for whom her feelings shift drastically.

Sunset

The most interesting aspect in Sunset comes from its flowing narrative. Albeit punctuated by a deliberately slow and contemplative pace, gradually the player can't help but learn more about the events and the characters. With every additional clue that Angela discovers in the apartment, it exponentially grows our desire to learn more, something that has led us to do our housework in record time, only to then have enough time to snoop in photos and documents that Ortega (deliberately) leaves around the apartment.

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Through a personal diary mechanic, where Angela pins her emotions and feelings about the conflict that is turning the country outside of this ivory tower upside down, Tale of Tales allows us to go deeper not only on chartacters' psychology, but also on their ideologies and their point of views about the social and political issues that are affecting Anchuria. There are many difficult issues that Angela (but also Ortega, through her) faces when she talks about the new dictator Miraflores, a man who sees art and culture as destabilising and threatening. Something that makes the narrative feel very modern, and an important theme that could easily be applied to the most of the conflicts (historical and contemporary) that have shaped our history.

Sunset has the sensitivity to deal with contemporary issues with great ease: without ever feeling like tired clichés. Tale of Tales' new game has found a winning formula in its simplicity. As demonstrated by equally insightful games dedicated to war and conflict, such as This War of Mine and Valiant Hearts: The Great War, it is possible to deal with those important and sometimes difficult issues. It boils down to the core strength of the story, without any special frills and trickery. From a more technical point of view, Sunset is not a perfect game: there are some pop-ins, the graphics are a bit rough, but it didn't stop us enjoying the story. It's definitely something to appreciate as the games industry is constantly looking for photorealism, sometimes at the expense of a quality narrative.

SunsetSunset

We really enjoyed Sunset. Entirely focussed on a strong narrative with fascinating characters and involving issues, the new game by Tale of Tales is a welcome surprise, a very important cultural offering that once again serves to elevate video games as a new and vital form of contemporary art.

08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Beautiful and intriguing story, Rich characters, Enchanting soundtrack.
-
Its contemplative and slow pace, Graphics are a bit rough.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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