The only other woman she encounters has given into the system. Every man she interacts with flirts with her, condescends to her, or manipulates her for information to further a personal agenda under a veneer of being trustworthy and “one of the good ones,” taking advantage of knowledge of a woman’s place in the world, in the power structure. Her friend is kidnapped almost literally in front of her eyes and the cops don’t care, they just explain to her all the reasons why the kidnapping probably wasn’t a kidnapping, okay then why it was a hoax, okay then why her theories as to what’s going on that have been investigated and substantiated with evidence are wrong and her friend probably isn’t being held in the building and there’s nothing to worry about. Nobody takes her seriously, nobody listens to her. A young woman in a world that hates her for being. We are all grist for the mill, and the wheel never stops turning.Ĭonsider Nancy Drew. Not for the people who are routinely crushed under the heels of the wealthy and powerful, and not even for the people at the top of the heap.
So, capitalism will kill us, and there’s no escape.
There are simply other things going on in this game that are more interesting and important, even with that character (whose identity I will be spoiling along with everything else in the game starting in the next paragraph – if you might be interested and you care about spoilers – play the game! It slaps!) Once again the identity of the culprit is extremely clear almost from the beginning but it’s fine here imo the WHO of it all is almost taken for granted, barely played as a reveal at all. This one definitely leans more on shooing you from event flag to event flag, dialog to dialog over solving a grand puzzle or piecing together a historical narrative (that element is present but takes a decided back seat). Puzzles are also pretty light and breezy in general, which could be considered a criticism but I think is appropriate for the tone and speed of play in the game, and the heavier focus on characters and narrative.
The theater might be the smallest space of the series so far, maybe even smaller than the school areas of the first entry, Secrets Can Kill, and you definitely have to do the least amount of backtracking through secret areas that require puzzle-solves to access. There’s a general streamlining to the proceedings that goes along with this idea of urgency. This is a desperate situation that fucking nobody is taking seriously but you and Lani Minella sells this urgency in Nancy really well. Nancy, who is only able to be characterized through dialogue and voice performance, is written completely differently in this game – she’s frazzled, and caustic much more prone to irritable jabs and frustrated outbursts. It’s a decidedly different tone for this series, and while I strongly enjoy the comfortable creepiness of past entries at their best, Her pulls off a frantic, sweaty energy here arguably better. She’ll work to do both throughout the game, and is met with nothing but skepticism, competition, and outright hostility by a cavalcade of shitfuck assholes who are determined to twist a tragic crisis towards their own personal gain. Nancy receives a threatening phone call from a disguised voice telling her that if the demolition isn’t cancelled then Maya will die, which gives Nancy a strict three day time limit to find her friend, who is almost certainly hidden somewhere in this old magician’s theater, or cancel the demolition. Maya enters Brady’s dressing room, a scream is heard, and when Nancy breaks in, the room is empty.
Louis so Maya can interview movie star Brady Armstrong, whose most recent film is about to premiere there before the theater is due to be sadly demolished in three days.
Nancy and her friend Maya are at the historic royal palladium theater in St.
This is it pack it the fuck up everybody they did it it only took them five tries to absolutely goddamn nail it.Īt its core, The Final Scene is a game about how there is ultimately no way to escape becoming prey to the machine of capitalism.īut I guess I should set up the story before I unpack that.