Past Cure is a broken and generic third-person shooter that lets its hints of originality drown in its cliché, unexplained story and its painfully glitchy gameplay. While I can see that a certain amount of passion was put into Past Cure, no amount of passion can make this game functional.
Past Cure
Developer: Phantom 8
Price: $29.99
Consoles: PS4, PC
MonsterVine was provided a PS4 code for review purposes
Past Cure is a strange beast that is truly unsure of what exactly it wants to be. At times, a third-person shooter, at other times, a stealth-based horror game, and sometimes, an awkward revenge story that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Had Past Cure focused in on one of these things it may have been an alright, though somewhat generic, third-person thriller. Instead, the game spreads itself far too thin, especially considering the core of the game is already an unfortunately broken mess.
In Past Cure you play as Ian, a man who was kidnapped and subjected to scientific experiments. Though Ian is free and living at his brother’s beach house, he is plagued by vague nightmares involving mannequins and a mysterious woman. Worth mentioning is that Ian needs special blue pills to keep him sane, and that there are other colored pills whose effects are never clarified. Encouraged by his brother, Ian decides to take down the people who ruined his life. At least, I think this is what Ian was doing. Once you leave the beach house, things get incredibly confusing due to a lack of pacing or consistency. One second you’re in a parking garage, shooting well-dressed armed guards. The next, you’re in a prison that is inhabited by killer mannequins and what seem to be Ian’s memories. Then you’re in the dream woman’s apartment talking about bagels, then you’re in a weird bunker full of jail cells with mannequins. There’s no consistency in the story, making these transitions far too jarring.
Poor consistency is the least of Past Cure’s issues, as it tries to juggle numerous clichés without explaining any of them. While you can gather some of Ian’s past through an optional tape recording in the prison, almost everything else about him and the rest of the world goes unexplained. What parts of this game were real? What do the various pills do? What was the point of the pretentious mannequin/chess scenes? Is Ian’s brother real? Why was Ian taken for experimentation? Who is Ames, the main villain of the game who doesn’t really do anything until the end? And who is Sophia and what purpose did she serve? What did the infamous Black Pill even do? Nothing makes sense or even tries to, making the entire story feel pointless. I finished the game far more confused with the story than I was when I started it, but with no motivation to know the answers. The clunky dialogue doesn’t help matters, seeing as it’s primarily made up of blank statements and awkward “quips”. I can almost see an alright story somewhere in Past Cure, but it’s far too confused to present it in any meaningful way.
Past Cure’s gameplay doesn’t fare much better, primarily because of how frequently it just doesn’t work. At its most basic, Past Cure is a third-person cover shooter. This is a problem since cover doesn’t always work, as being a centimeter away from the barrier makes you open to all sorts of fire. Returning fire is just as messy thanks to goofy A.I. and wonky shooting mechanics. Enemies wearing no armor whatsoever can take numerous headshots as they approach you, which is certainly shocking. Seeing a guy in a dress shirt take two shots to the head without stopping, even as his head twitches backwards with each shot, is disorienting. Sometimes enemies can’t even find you, as they’d rather run in circles while clipping halfway into a wall, or get stuck endlessly running behind an invisible wall. Sometimes enemies won’t even shoot you, standing still with their gun pointed at you for a solid ten seconds before firing, even as you stand directly in front of them.
The one part of the gameplay that had potential was Ian’s astral projection ability. Disabling security cameras and invading enemy minds can add some actual variety to the game, though the fact that you can’t invade the minds of most enemies is frustrating. Astral projection is rarely used as the game goes on though, meaning you’ll have to use Past Cure’s version of bullet-time far more. While slowing down your environment to outmaneuver foes sounds cool, it rarely works in the way it should. A single hit jolts you out of bullet-time, and you move as slowly as your opponents, so it’s impossible to use it to fight close-quarters enemies or enemies with automatic weapons. Trying to melee these enemies is equally futile, as the quick-time button prompts aren’t timed properly, making fighting or defending yourself a frustrating affair.
Past Cure’s visuals feel more akin to an early PS3 game than a game of the current generation. Character faces are static and eerie, while animations are over-dramatic and goofy. Scenes that are meant to be emotional are often somewhat comedic, largely because of the blank faces on each character. There are only a few types of enemies, and environments start to look pretty similar in each area. Parking garages and jail hallways can only stay interesting for so long, making large chunks of the game feel like a visual slog. The choppy framerate drains what little life environments have, as even the most basic of rooms can cause substantial choppiness.
The voice acting in Past Cure is flat and poor. No matter the situation, every character sounds as though they’re filing their taxes, even in a firefight. The wooden writing is made worse by the sheer lack of emotion present in every character’s voicework, which makes the story even harder to take seriously. The music is forgettable but sufficient, coming off as a fairly standard background score.
The Final Word
Past Cure tries to be many things, but succeeds in none of its ventures. The broken gameplay, already dated visuals, and brutal voice acting makes sitting through the boring and incohesive story a painful endeavor. I can’t recommend the game to anyone, as it’s simply not an enjoyable experience.
– MonsterVine Rating: 1 out of 5 – Abysmal
