Yesterday Review (Windows PC)

Visually speaking, Yesterday looks 2-dimensional and cartoony, but the characters are rendered in 3D which makes them look more visually striking than the environments. The dialog animations are pretty choppy and not visually appealing to watch. It is dealt out in a comic style with a chat bubble and a list of available chat options. Most conversations are pretty bland. Some of the characters make weird jokes, but most of the conversations are one-sided, where you ask questions and they answer without any dynamic chat. There is no negative consequence if you pick a poor choice which limits the excitement during serious events. There are some quiz type conversations, such as the strangely used chess quiz, that seem out of place in the life and death situations where they are used.

The save game feature allows for a few different profiles to store separate games, which was a little odd because the chapter selection replay feature allows you to go back and replay the game from anywhere. Plus, when loading a saved game it doesn’t always resume in even remotely the same place as you left off. I remember loading my game and was shocked to see myself at the very beginning again, until I found the chapter selection.

My Thoughts

Overall I didn’t notice anything new or innovative to catch and keep my attention in Yesterday. The music was nice, the art was pretty, but the gameplay was typical to that of any other adventure game. The plot is what would draw in most. Personally, I did not care too much for the plot. It was just too jumpy for my taste, and the characters too difficult to follow. If there was a tiny bit more explanation about the choices the characters made, etc, I probably would have enjoyed the game much more.

Review based on the full retail version of the game supplied by the publisher.