Adventure Gamers - Forums

It’s like an indie supernatural detective show with Hollywood sensibilities. It’s not AAA-polished, nor is it going for art-house or connoisseur critic approval. But it delivers a plot you can follow, characters you can describe in a couple of seconds and a mechanic that makes it different from similar games in the genre. And it’s stylistically consistent.

I think it’s on par with the Broken Sword games, give or take a couple of flaws on either side of that equation.

Baron_Blubba - 04 March 2022 02:36 PM

A compelling and exciting game with some thrilling cliff-hanger highs…and also some terrible immersion breaking glitches, instances of poor writing, horrible puzzle design, and beyond-my-capability suspension of disbelief nonsense behavior from the characters.

The almost mandatory adventure game ‘mystic momma’ character was really annoying, too.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but sometimes I got frustrated when poor game design made me think ‘Why?! This could have been so much better with just a little more thought put into it.’

All true. Game has many flaws. Can be very frustrating sometimes. Game is very linear, actions must be done in an exact order or forget it.

Yet, despite all of this I’m enjoying the game. I’ve played better and I’ve played way worse. I do like the main characters and the voice acting is very good. Hopefully Episode 3 is as good as people say it is!

I just finished the game. Episode 3 was indeed amazing, however, Episode 4 was not so hot and was a poor end to the game. Too bad they didn’t end it with episode 3. Then this game would have been one of my favorites. No clue why 4 sucked and 3 was amazing as both were developed by the same team.

Puzzle wise, many of the Episode 4 puzzles were just plain strange and not at all logical. Also, Episode 4 had many scenes that seemed to be added on purely to add padding and length to game. Overall however I did enjoy the game and I’m glad I played it.

Yeah, I don’t remember episode 4 and the ending as terrible neither. Of course, episode 3 set the bar very high, so it is normal episode 4 looked worse.

All in all, I remember having a great time playing the whole game.

walas74 - 10 March 2022 10:58 AM

Yeah, I don’t remember episode 4 and the ending as terrible neither. Of course, episode 3 set the bar very high, so it is normal episode 4 looked worse.

All in all, I remember having a great time playing the whole game.

Glad to hear that there are people out there that enjoyed the game’s Episode 4. Here’s what Adventuregamers said about episode 4:

Our Verdict:
Definitely the low point of the series, The Cain Killer is obviously still a must-play if you’re invested in the Cognition series thus far, though it reminds us that Phoenix Online has a lot of room to grow.

It got 2.5 stars.

I’d love to replay the games Episodes in the following order: 1, 2, 4 then 3.

chrissie - 10 March 2022 10:22 AM

I don’t remember being disappointed with Episode 4 & the game’s conclusion. That’s not to say I wasn’t as it was quite a few years ago I played it but I’m sure it would have stuck in my mind if it was really awful! 

I’d still do a CPT of the game, the games perfect for one and I would enjoy playing this game with group of people.

In 2013, the game won 6 people’s choice Aggie awards, including game of the year.

Episode 3 was fantastic and I’d replay that again in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I didn’t think 4 was too bad either. Definitely not as good as 3, which was awesome. But I don’t remember being horribly disappointed. Though I am not one to be terribly disturbed with less-than-perfect endings, so it might just be that.

I only played this once when it came out, so I am interested in a replay.

Pyoro-2 - 11 March 2022 04:49 AM

I can only remember 4 as being bad all around.

a) The plot went in completely bizarre directions with no time to properly build up or resolve this random zig zag courses it suddenly took
b) The puzzles were not very satisfying
c) The overall length was very disappointing; as far as I remember it was by far the shortest out of all of them
d) The ending wasn’t satisfying in any way; and I’m not saying that in a “It had to be rainbows and unicorns!”, but it was just a dud to me
e) I seem to remember some sort of glitch/bug/... too, but then, all episodes had some technical issues here or there

Didn’t hate it but for me it certainly dragged down the entire experience. Maybe I’ll replay it one of these days to look at it with fresh eyes. Not like there’s exactly a huge selection of similar games out there ^^;

Thanks for this review. I could not agree more. Pretty much spot on.