Pendula Swing: Episodes 1-3 review

Pendula Swing: Episodes 1-3 review
Pendula Swing: Episodes 1-3 review
The Good:
  • Engaging, fleshed-out characters
  • Complex web of connections to explore
  • Thought-provoking
  • Attractive graphics and lively soundtrack
The Bad:
  • Buggy and unpolished
  • Can sometimes be too complex for its own good
  • Feels a little too serious at times
Our Verdict:

Although not yet complete, the episodic Pendula Swing‘s not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve, eschewing puzzles to explore contemporary issues. While a little more humour and polish wouldn’t have gone amiss, it’s a brave attempt to tackle real problems through fantasy.

What's your verdict?
Log in or Register to post ratings.

Billed by Swedish developers Valiant Game Studio as "Tolkien meets The Great Gatsby", Pendula Swing is a bit of an odd duck. Currently four parts into a seven-episode story arc, it’s an intriguing mix of elements, with fantasy staples such as dwarves and elves living in a land very much like America in the roaring ‘20s, but its heart very much set on modern social commentary. You won't find any grand battles here, and magic's used not to kill or curse but to chill ice cream. Instead, the focus is on discrimination (racial and otherwise), different cultures, and immigration issues. In place of complex puzzles, you have an intricate web of choices to make as you navigate your way around Pendula. Will you embrace diversity, or give in to stereotypes? Trumpet your warrior past, or fly under the radar? Where some may see it as slow, serious, and more or less challenge-free, to others it'll be a welcome change and a chance to explore real issues in a fictional setting. 

Brialynne is a dwarvish heroine, famed for slaying the foul orc Nakirik. That was a long time ago, though (350 years or so), and since then she's settled down on a quiet island to live out her days, farming and mourning the death of her beloved wife Taheena. It's been so long since she last left her peaceful island, in fact, that her boat is half-submerged by the shore. She tends to her chickens, takes care of her talking cat (and former elf) Katya and brews dwarven ale. All that changes, though, when she wakes up one day to find that her axe, which had been hanging on her living room wall for centuries, is gone, and there are tiny goblin footprints leading out the door. Why would anyone do this to a half-forgotten hero after all this time? Playing as Brialynne, it's your job to find out and reconnect with the wider world of Pendula along the way.

Time hasn't stood still while Brialynne has been away. The world she remembers, with epic sagas of heroes and swords, magic and chivalry, has given way to something we humans would recognise as much more modern. Pendula, and its capital Duberdon in particular, has embraced the jazz age, with elvish flappers jitterbugging the night away and speakeasies offering the illicit delights of super strong dwarvish beer. Humans have found a way to make moving pictures without magic, and even take to the skies in great flying machines.

Not everyone sees this as progress. Indeed, many of the non-human residents view it as a human bid to take control and sideline both them and their cultures. There's a definite pecking order at play here, with the humans and elves at the top, followed closely by the dwarves, then the orcs and goblins bringing up the rear. Yes, the humans may have replaced elvish magic with their science and technology, but the elves still shine on the silver screen and behave like the aristocrats they are. The dwarves and orcs, meanwhile, take care of the heavy lifting, and the goblins... Well, the goblins are pretty much seen as riff-raff and criminals.

Pendula Swing, as is hopefully becoming clear, is not your typical fantasy tale. The only actual fighting takes place in an excerpt from a film about Brialynne's life, shown at the start to set the stage. Instead, it aims to explore the social issues facing this multicultural world – and by extension, our own. Everyone you meet (and there are a lot of them) has a story to tell, and every race has its own traditions, mores, and scores to settle. There are orcs looking to defy their dumb brute image by becoming professors and teachers. A dwarf that wants to get away from mining and brewing to become a stockbroker. Polyamorous goblins that just want a fair deal. An elvish war hero who suffers from PTSD and is down on his luck. And that's before we even get to the issues raised by interracial love affairs and half-breed children.

All of this is presented in attractive isometric 3D and set to a lively jazz soundtrack. Brialynne's island is a pastoral idyll, with a rustic cottage surrounded by woodland and chickens pecking in the yard, while Duberdon is a bustling metropolis full of grand buildings and peaceful piazzas. On the higher graphics settings it looks great: lovingly and realistically rendered with a slight vintage sepia tint and lots of little incidental details. That said, everything's viewed from quite far away, and there's relatively little in the way of ambient animation. Duberdon in particular is packed, but everyone's generally just standing or sitting around, giving it the static feel of a ‘90s RPG.

The music varies from the gentle folksy feel of Brialynne's island to various shades of traditional jazz on the mainland, from gentle cafe tunes to dancehall stompers. That's all mixed with unobtrusive background effects, such as waves lapping on the shore, traffic roaring, and people chatting amongst themselves. There are also newfangled radios scattered throughout the city, playing the latest hits. That last one's a bit of a mixed blessing though: it seems like a nice idea, but the radio music ends up playing over the regular background score in the area, often creating a bit of a din and leading me to switch them off. It's an odd misstep in an otherwise well-executed soundscape, but it's indicative of the game as a whole: inventive, but often a little lacking in polish.

There's no voice acting in Pendula Swing, but you can choose to have the actors mumble while you read for atmosphere, if you wish. The lack of voice-over is entirely understandable, however, as there's a lot of dialogue, with seemingly every character you meet ready to discuss their life and times in detail with a complete stranger. Not that you're always a stranger, but we'll get to that in a bit.

The interface is pretty straightforward, but the developers get extra points for the way it's connected to the gameplay. For example, you need to pick up a leather backpack in your bedroom, at which point the bag appears in the lower right of the screen and acts as your inventory. (Disappointingly, Brialynne doesn't seem to actually wear the backpack on-screen.) Likewise, an in-game map appears next to the bag after a salesman you meet early on gives it to you, and there's a journal in the bottom left that keeps track of your current objectives. Icons to show all hotspots and bring up the menu round out the interface. The hint system is also smoothly integrated in the form of the dwarf detective you meet toward the end of Episode 2. Aidan is not too forthcoming about his motives, but he's ready to help out when you get stuck if you call him from any nearby phone booth.

The game's conversational focus is reinforced by the fact that there's no way to directly use items. Instead, you talk to the person you want to give an object to and select the appropriate dialogue option. Conversations are multiple-choice affairs with options you can select either by clicking on them or pressing the appropriate number key. They're also a little glitchy, with responses sometimes overflowing the box provided and the screen occasionally becoming stuck for a while when you try to leave.

These issues, unfortunately, are symptomatic of a more general bugginess. For example, you can sometimes ask a character (such as Katya) to tag along with you in your travels, but if you then quit the game and return to it, as often as not the character has either disappeared entirely or is glitchy, such as your elf friend apparently sitting in mid-air down at the docks. Loading times can also be weirdly long, especially as you get further into the game: at the beginning it started almost instantly, but by the time I got to the third episode, it was taking the better part of a minute to load.

Continued on the next page...

continue reading below

What our readers think of Pendula Swing: Episodes 1-3


Post review

Adventure games by Valiant Game Studio

Pendula Swing (Series)

Pendula Swing (Series) 2019


» View all games in this series