Runaway: A Twist of Fate

La saga, es mi favorita de todos los tiempos. Divertidisima con puzzles complicados (algunos sin sentido xd) pero la historia te atrapa y es una de esas sagas que desearia olvidarme para jugar una y otra vez. Personalmente este es el mejor juego de los 3. No es el mas dificil pero si el mas interesante y divertido. No es un juego caro asi que si piensan en comprarlo haganlo porque vale totalmente la pena y el tiempo

For a series forgotten to time, in a genre that was in its last few breaths, it was truly inevitable that everything would have to come to an end. Thankfully for Runaway, the series ended at its peak.

Picking up from where the... divisive Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle left off, Runaway: A Twist of Fate sees Brian defending himself against a murder charge. The murder of the previous game's secondary antagonist, Colonel Kordsmeier! Brian recounts what happened in Dream of the Turtle, but it sounds completely insane, given that the plot of Dream of the Turtle is completely insane. So he gets confined in a psychiatric ward and talks to the head psychiatrist, Dr Bennett, about what happened. The actual game segment kicks off at Brian's funeral, Gina is there mourning his death. When all of a sudden, Gina gets a phonecall from Brian, and he's alive! He tells her to DIG HIS GRAVE UP?!?! Wowie!!! And thus starts the classic Runaway insanity we're all familiar with. A solid premise! Not too heavy on the exposition, but also intriguing enough to keep you playing.

Generally, I found the story to be a massive step up from the second game, and even the first somewhat. With the second game, it really just felt like they were padding on extra crap for the story to keep going along, with there being almost zero cohesion between each chapter aside from an incredibly weak overarching story involving aliens and shit. The final chapter, the one with the pirates, had pretty much NOTHING to do with the rest of the game, it was just pure filler. Here though, everything is far more intertwined, with the focus dead-set on declaring Brian's innocence. The way all the puzzle elements play into it is masterfully done, and the ending is great as well. Personally this one had my favourite story of the Runaway series.

In terms of gameplay, this is stepped up as well. Pixel-hunting? Fuck off!!! Runaway: A Twist of Fate has a toggle that lets you see all the interactive objects in a room, so say goodbye to pixel-hunting! This makes getting all the puzzle items SO much less frustrating, while also not being a distracting highlighter that's on the entire time, since it's a toggle. Very good feature! And if for some reason you actually LIKE pixel hunting, well you can just choose to NOT use the toggle! And of course, remember the context sensitive bullshit where Brian would say "oh no bro I can't pick that up yet I should come back here later to pick it up!" For the most part, that's done away with as well. Yes lads, fill your inventory with all the seemingly junk and random items as soon as possible so they can be used for later puzzles, like how the Lord Jesus Christ himself intended point-and-clicks to be designed!!!! I think overall the puzzles are quite a bit easier than the last two games, I don't know if that's just the lack of moon logic, or because they're generally simpler and more to-the-point. The only chapter I really struggled on was the second one, which I needed a few hints for, but for the rest of the chapters, it just took a bit of thinking to figure out what I was supposed to do. Some might view this as a flaw of the game, but I didn't mind really. Your mileage may vary, of course.

What I did notice the most was that... the voices are different! Ahhhh! That isn't Brian! Who is this nasally fucker? And that certainly isn't Kordsmeier, either! Not a huge deal, though, it's just something I thought I'd mention, since it's pretty jarring coming from the first two games, to then hearing the same characters sound almost nothing like they did before.

As much as I think the game is the best of the Runaway series, let's be real, it's still Runaway at its heart. It doesn't really bring anything new or exciting to the table for adventure games, the humour isn't really that well executed (there's too many throwbacks to previous games and meta humour IMO), and the story, while pretty fun, isn't much to write home about, especially considering how narrative-driven the adventure genre normally is. Brian as a character has improved overall, especially compared to the downright sociopath he was at points in the previous entry, but his overall package is still pretty bland if I'm being honest. If I had to rate the game out of 10, I'd say maybe 6.5 or a low 7 at best.

If you liked Runaway 1, and somehow got through its sequel, then Runaway: A Twist of Fate is definitely a must-play, wrapping up the events from the prior entry decently well and providing a decently fun point-and-click adventure gaming experience. Even as a standalone game without having played either of the previous two entries, I'd still recommend trying this.

Banana!