Bottle: Pilgrim Redux

Bottle: Pilgrim Redux is an emotional journey and can be a painful topic for many who suffer from addiction, regret or loss, but I thought the story’s progression handled it well. It’s a tale full of joy, grief, anger, sorrow, remembrance, and redemption and I was very touched by it.

I really liked the inclusion of ‘interludes’ … touching little snippets of the narrator’s memories – some endearing or funny, others heartbreaking – to support the main chapters of the story; it was quite effective. You can also view the story through the eyes of 6 year old Emily as you collect her crayon drawings scattered throughout the environment … another poignant and effective way to advance this story.

Bottle: Pilgrim Redux, as with all of Bodur’s work, is filled with gorgeous environments to explore. Chapter 4 was particularly stunning and I probably spent more time taking screenshots than progressing through the story. It was really quite beautiful. While I spent a little over 3 hours in the game, it was mainly just admiring the scenery and capturing some really stunning screenshots. The game can be completed in a little over an hour and is well worth the time.

This is my favorite of Bodur’s games I have played thus far. If you’re not a huge fan of walking sims, I’d recommend trying Bottle: Pilgrim Redux, it might change your mind.

tl;dr: A walking sim that get's boring after five minutes while you listen to a self indulgent turd of a narrator.

The long of it:
The graphics look nice for the first five minutes then get extremely boring as you march down an endless canyon of rock and bushes while you are forced to listen to an alcoholic tell you that he got his own daughter killed because he was too busy getting wasted and being felt up by a beach bimbo but he forgives himself (how magnanimous of him) and he hopes she forgives him too because every year for the last 9 years he goes on vacation and chucks a bottle of booze into the sea.

Graphics: 8/10 - (Ultra everything, Head bob disabled) - Landscapes look pretty but the few animals there are have the worst animations I've seen since 1993
Music: 3/10 - Slow, boring piano chords that don't actually fit with the story or scenery
Story: -100/10 - The narrator actually pissed me off listening to him try and paint himself as anything but the dirt bag he actually is
Game Length: 77 minutes - less really when you factor it time for faffing in menus, getting up to grab a drink, taking a mouthful of pizza - I'd wager closer to 60 minutes

Hardware:
CPU: Ryzen 7 1800x
RAM: 64GB DDR4
GPU1: RTX 4060 8GB (Primary Display)
GPU2: GTX 1660 6GB (Secondary & Tertiary Displays)
Storage: 480GB SATA3 SSD, 1000GB SATA3 SSD, 1000GB M.2 SSD