Siren -- Final Opinion.

I have seen the final movie earned from finding all the archive items in Siren, and in doing so have fully completed the game. Siren is a very mixed bag. The story is the game's strongest feature. A wonderfully dark tale of revenge, selfishness, survival, and the occult. It's presented piecemeal. It's a mystery you unravel and reconstruct. When you have all the pieces together you see that they fit into a clear picture. But like any great story within the genre, it's open to interpretation here and there. The story is also highly nuanced. It's all there in the details, should you notice them. It's in this style of telling the story that the game also suffers the most. Because of the extremely obscure nature of the puzzles coupled with unlocking the secondary missions you're often left wondering where to go and what to do. The game's linking system chart really tries to help you along but doesn't actually get the job done as well as it should have. You end up checking everything in the level for context sensitive changes to your action menu. Which isn't always easy or fun given the situations you'll often find yourself in with the shibito. It's tough to notice that little something in the dark corner while you're running for your life. The combat is also a mixed bag. The stealth element is interesting. A couple instances of real tension trying to sneak by a boss or two. The actual combat could best be described as clunky. It's very workhorse. It gets the job done. But it never clicks. It's always just a little off. The game uses a nontraditional graphic style to tell the story. The character models are modeled after real people. Real faces. Almost like photos mapped onto polygons. It's a little off-putting at first, but it will grow on you to the point of being appreciated. The music and sound in the game work perfectly. The game was translated by SCEE and uses British voice actors for the entirely Japanese cast of characters. This is more than a little off-putting at first, but does also indeed come to grow on you. Siren is a bold and original approach to the genre. The concept is sound. The execution flawed. Those of you who like a great story and don't mind some frustration to see it through, should look into this one. You will be frustrated, but you will also be rewarded, or at least I was. I'm going to give the game the relatively high score of 8.0 basedon the rewarding story. But then again, maybe it's just me, so I'm inviting Magus to give his full take on the game...

Next up, cleaning out the catalog of the games you pick up cheap and never get around to starting, as I have a few days to kill before the next must play right now title arrives.