Silence

I saw from a mile away from what was coming, and even so, in the story's final moments, I could only sit there in stunned, thoughtful silence.

Silence is a game that deserves to be played in docked mode on the Switch. It gives you a story you’ll be immersed in, while the vibrant graphics will keep you playing for just that little bit longer.

Not Daedalic's best.

It’s reminiscent of the best of ’70s and ’80s children’s cinema, like The Secret of Nimh. It embraces a youthful vigor while introducing and exploring adult concepts. Honestly, if this were cut into a movie, I would be first in line for a copy of my own. As a game, it can be tedious at times as success is mostly left to random bumping into the walls until the right thing happens. All in all, it’s easy to enjoy the Silence.

Silence is a great game with some quirks.  The artwork is beautiful and the animation is pretty good for the most part, and the story definitely takes center stage for me.  However, the puzzles are rather simple, most of the dialogue (and puzzles for that matter) have no real consequence for choosing a wrong option, and the forty dollar price tag might be off-putting to some, especially since you can find it for half of that on other platforms.  Silence is definitely worth checking out and it makes me want to play through The Whispered World, but I'd recommend waiting for it to go on sale.

Silence provides a fun, thoughtful, but brief experience on the Nintendo Switch. Its charms may be lost on younger gamers, but old-school adventurers will like the way it harks back to the days of yore while eschewing many of the more annoying aspects of the genre. Silence has a great story that's well acted, wonderful environments to explore and puzzles that are fun to solve, but you may want to wait for a sale before you set off.

GOOD - Silence is an adventure game in the point and click genre. The story is interesting and keeps you entertained even though some of the gameplay bits are annoying and don’t work very well. The voice acting and scenery is done very well and helps keep you engrossed. Definitely a good pick if you love this type of game.

Functionally, Silence works as a basic point and click adventure game, but I feel as though it shows growth beyond the well-trod genre expectations. A blend of traditional old-school mechanics mixed with advances in storytelling and gameplay variation allows Silence to stand above what I have seen served up over the last few years. Some lackluster audio and a missed opportunity with the bevy of characters detract slightly, but not overly so from this generally decent package.

Overall, if you’re looking for a more open world experience or a narrative that takes one of many paths based on your various choices, you might be a bit disappointed by Silence.

Silence is yet another amazing point-and-click game to add to your ‘must buy’ list on the Switch if you like the genre. There’s very little to fault in this Daedalic Entertainment classic, with its excellent voice acting, captivating music, interesting environmental puzzles, and it’s six to eight-hour playtime, you’ll be hooked from the emotional opening all the way to the final choice you have to make. The game is the second in the series yet prior knowledge isn’t required, so don’t let that put you off picking it up either, they simply called it ‘Silence‘ and not The Whispered World 2 for a reason; it’s its own self-contained story.