They say that a house holds memories and every memory is a story to tell. Blue Backpack uses their new release to explore the sombre reality of Berlin through different eras through a quaint little Berlin Apartment. This narrative focused game takes you through the lives of Josef (1933), Mathilda (1945), Kolja (1989) and Tonia (1967).
Available on the PS Store for £19.99, we took a step into The Berlin Apartment to see whether this game deserves a place in your collection.
One Apartment, Many Stories, Much Heart
Gameplay
As a narrative-driven story, the gameplay of The Berlin Apartment is pretty simplistic. You use the analogue stick to move around along with R2 to interact with the environment. However, this simplistic approach works in the game’s favour. Absorbing the story is much easier when there isn’t a convoluted control system in the way.
This isn’t just a wander around type of game, though, as Blue Backpack have added mini interactions within the stories to add different gameplay elements. For example, in Kolja’s story – which revolves around having conversations with someone on the other side of the Berlin wall – you have to manually control the paper planes that he uses to send messages. It’s not as simple as it sounds as you have to deal with wind, water, snow, and more!
While it may be too simplistic for some, I really enjoyed delving into the story and learning about each of the inhabitants of the apartment.
Bugs
One bug that I experienced a couple of times was falling through the maps. I don’t know what causes this to happen. It only seems to happen when knocking down tiles from the wall. To fix this you just have to reload the game. It only happened twice so it wasn’t too bad. I’m sure it will be fixed in future patches! The good thing is you can see just how big the map is and it is much bigger than I thought it was from wandering around.
Graphics & Audio
I really, really like the art style of this game. There is something about it that I just cannot get enough of. Each character seems so unique, even though we only really get short glimpses of what they look like. Blue Backpack also do a good job of integrating other forms of entertainment, such as the silent movie sequences, to break up the graphics and add some interesting shifts in perspective that keep the game related directly to the year and the character you are focused on.
Each character seems to have their own style and music choice that changes depending on the decade you’re in. It’s a really good personalised touch.
Graphics Issues
Despite the simplistic beauty, there were a couple of issues with the graphics. It isn’t necessarily game breaking, however it does ruin the illusion. The main issue I had was when finding the photograph to start Josef’s story. I rebooted the game and reloaded my save to see if this would fix the issue but it didn’t. The photo appeared only as the item outline. It remained this way even after completing the story and adding it to the mementos box.
Longevity
There are plenty of trophies/achievements for you to get as you play this game. A lot of them you can just pick up as you play, however, some will require you to revisit the different stories. The Berlin Apartment wraps everything up perfectly in one playthrough.
Final Thoughts
The Berlin Apartment tells its story beautifully through the eyes of many different narrators. There are plenty of opportunities to replay chapters if you’re going for for the platinum like I will be. For the slight bugs and graphics issues, I have to give the game the Thumb Culture Gold Award. Once these issues are fixed, I could easily bump this up to a platinum game.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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