Bottle: Pilgrim Redux is a no-combat first-person walking simulator based around a family man’s loss, negligence, and addiction. Coincidentally, EastAsiaSoft’s Purpose 1951 released just a couple weeks before this Catness publish title and the similarities between these two games are uncanny to draw a comparison.
Although you never see the protagonist’s face, you play as a middle-aged man who makes a journey to a cliffside each year. The only form of input is the left analog stick to control movement and the right to adjust perspective, just like any FPS. There is no combat. There is no leveling up. There is no jumping. There is no climbing. There is no HUD. You just walk forward and the game plays itself. Oddly, sometimes pressing “B” can toggle between walking and sprinting, with sprinting being the much-preferred way to play, while “Y” activates auto-walk mode. When auto-walking, the player only has to move the right analog stick to control direction.
Unfortunately, I encountered a hilariously bad, nearly game breaking bug. When I booted up my save file, the left analog stick’s control was reversed for some reason. Meaning, pressing forward caused the player to move backward and holding down moved forward. Since this is very weird, I am glad the “Y” button auto-walk feature was implemented otherwise it would have been confusing to play through the remainder of the quest.
The problem with Bottle: Pilgrim Redux is the lack of polish. In addition to the movement glitch, the entire game is composed of stock Unreal assets and most environments repeat, making it easy to get lost especially since there are no quest markers or guides. Moving the camera also blurs everything in the environment until the camera stops, a sign of low framerate. Worse yet, the game’s narration is laughably low quality, which is the main gameplay gimmick. When you walk through an invisible trigger point, the man’s narration will tell the story to the player. However, this audio quality is so poor, as if it is being played off a warped cassette tape, it is nearly impossible to decipher what is being said. Thankfully, there is a subtitle option but this also has not been implemented with care as the entire block of text will appear as one large paragraph, instead of easy-to-read line by line text, often filling the bottom half of the screen.
The only form of replay value comes from finding glowing boxes scattered throughout most stages. But with repeating environmental asset use, finding these optional collectables becomes a tedious chore even if they are tied to most of the Achievements. I also couldn’t get the bunny Achievement to pop which is probably another bug.
It takes an hour to walk your way through this narrative, but nothing stands out. I am okay with the occasional boring walking simulator but the lack of polish and consideration towards the player is disappointing.
SCORE: 3.5/10
Not As Good As: Gone Home
Play It Instead: What Remains of Edith Finch
Wait For It: a sequel to Looney Toons: Duck Amuck (DS)
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
X/Twitter: @ZackGaz
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