Game: Goetia 2
Genre: Puzzle Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer|Publisher: Moeity | Forever Entertainment
Age Rating: EU 7+ | US E
Price: US $9.99 | UK £8.99 | EU € 9,99
Release Date: May 19th, 2022
Review code provided with many thanks to Forever Entertainment.
Two young lovers, Lucca and Daphné, are visiting Venice. Now, if there ever was a perfect city for two lovers to explore, it surely is Venice. Feed the pigeons on the San Marco square, take a Gondola ride through the canals and kiss each other on the famous Bridge of Sighs. But despite the beautiful surroundings, both Lucca and Daphné are exhausted after arriving in their rented apartment, so they turn in early. Or so they think…In Goetia 2, Luca awakens as a pure soul, nobody anymore, in dark surroundings with a demon called Buer. He has to puzzle his way out of this nightmare to regain his body and get back to Daphné again.
Luca’s Nightmare Begins
Goetia 2 is a point & click adventure with a twist. Normally in a point & click, you gather clues and tools to use in other situations. But Luca doesn’t have a body, let alone pockets, so there’s no way to store such things. Instead of that, Luca has to depend on powers, including the power of possession. And Buer informs him in a very cryptic way that his body has been temporarily appropriated and that he has to gather a certain number of elements vital to human life before he gets it back. There’s nothing for it, Luca has to go exploring. With your help, of course.
A Book That Isn’t Complete
He finds himself in some archives: and sees a keycard that’s slightly lighter than the rest. He finds he can possess the keycard and use it on the light switch…finally, some more light. Time to get to know his surroundings. A dark cloud has appeared above a book about shipbuilding in a sort of lecture, forming the gateway to a new area. Buer explains that books are voyages, but only if they are complete. But it isn’t pages they are missing, but meaning…that Buer is some help! Finding a page about human anatomy and combining it with the shipbuilding book opens the first portal, though I must admit I don’t really know why. Time to continue exploring.
Interact With All You See
Goetia 2 offers 5 areas to explore with 80 rooms, and you don’t have to work on them in a linear way. As a matter of fact, the first book I unlocked was another one that I found while exploring the first set of rooms Luca landed in.
Pressing the L shoulder showed me with little ? which objects I could explore and moving Luca’s soul over there and pressing the A button gave me the options available: either look for more info with X, if possible, possess the item with Y or do an action with A. The controls weren’t always accurate, especially pressing A for action didn’t work. I needed to use my pointer to select that action.
(Too) Dark Surroundings
Exploring was very satisfying, and the puzzles were certainly not easy to figure out, often leading me from room to room and back again to solve them. For me, the screen was too dark, even though I set my brightness as high as possible. The objects and surroundings were very detailed but also very small. Not always easy to see, especially in those dark surroundings. Exactly how detailed the objects were was brought home to me when I noticed a rather gruesome painting hanging on the wall. That same night, in a game quiz on Dutch television, they showed that same painting asking for the painter. It turned out it was “Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)”. I was surprised at that. After all, the age rating in the US for Goetia 2 is E for Everyone!
A Map, Journal and Codex
The spooky atmosphere is certainly there, helped along by the haunting music score in the background. You meet spirits and demons during your adventure, which means Goetia 2 is not for everyone. In fact, this is an alternate version of Venice, and the areas are all different from each other. Pressing ‘-‘ brings up a Map that shows all the areas and rooms you have been in. What’s extra nice is that it also shows where key items are that you have already found and that can be possessed. Plus, some rooms are key (faintly outlined in yellow), and you can travel to them instantly. Makes for much easier puzzling. Under that menu button, you will also find the Codex and the Journal, giving you an outline of what you have found so far.
Conclusion
Even though I have never played the first Goetia game, I must say I really liked my time in the strange world of Goetia 2. I would have liked to have more light and be able to see the details better, but the graphics look good, and the areas you search through are very detailed.
This point & click really had my brain cells doing overtime, and although I wouldn’t have young children play it, it wasn’t too disturbing for me. The developers did a good job at creating a spooky atmosphere without it being very scary.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot