PC GAME REVIEW: SERENA

Serena is a narrative-driven game. It is quite short, but it was also free (on Steam). I thought its brevity was one of its greatest assets as it told the story it wanted to tell without overstaying its welcome. It took me only around thirty minutes to beat this game, but I considered that time well spent.

Serena is a point-and-click style adventure game. You wake up in a cabin in the woods wondering where Serena is. You then click around to move or examine different items. You also happen to be afflicted with that most common of videogame character traits-amnesia. As you explore different areas of the cabin you uncover more of your past with Serena as well as details about the protagonist, whose name I cannot remember.

The game tells its story entirely from the perspective of the protagonist and his memory as you slowly uncover the mystery. The voice acting is superb as it slowly alters its tone to match how you remember events occurring. The graphics also do a good job of getting across the tone that the designers were trying to go for. Neither the sound nor the graphics needed to be flashy but they did a good job of matching the tone of Serena.

The tone of the game continues to change as you discover that things are not as straightforward as they first seem. Without spoiling how the game progresses and ends too much, it seemed to foreshadow its plot twists and then deliberately invert them. This keeps the game feeling fresh as it moves towards the story’s conclusion as you regain your memory of what transpired.

Overall, Serena is a very good game. Although it is short, it is also free and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It has a very deliberate message and tone that it conveys really well. I definitely enjoyed this as a fan of story-driven games that have a satisfying conclusion.

4 out of 5 amnesiac-waffles.