Stories Untold Reviews
Stories Untold is clever when it comes to delivering the narrative, and its brief text-adventure is interesting. Unfortunately, most of it is pushing buttons and turning dials on command, and this leaves much to be desired.
An interesting experiment that many players will find too taxing, Untold Stories shows what unique things can be done when telling stories through the medium of gaming, but ultimately fails to deliver on its own narrative.
What could have been something lasting, something real, is instead a two dimensional narrative which brandishes plot twists and visual trickery to camouflage a lack of rich storytelling. Nonetheless, I would still highly recommend Stories Untold to writers and game developers: there are ideas in the first few episodes which are fascinating, and I'm dying to see where No Code's metafictive experimentation might take the text adventure genre.
Each chapter of Stories Untold is framed like an episode of a Twilight Zone-style anthology television show, replete with a killer John Carpenter-esque synth-backed intro. It pays more than a passing nod to the introduction to hit show Stranger Things, but it's undeniably cool, and we'd love to see an Untold Stories 2 that continued the theme, only with a more consistent episode quality.
Though I’m old enough to recall, with some fondness even, the days of playing purely text-based adventure games the likes of Zork and others I can’t say I was initially thrilled at the prospect of returning to that style of play...
GOOD - Stories Untold combines the old-school text adventure with modern day sensibilities. This one isn’t for the action fans out there – you’ll be mostly reading and solving small puzzles to progress. With four different stories and point and click interactions, fans of adventure games should consider picking this one up.
It is unfortunate that Stories Untold builds up such an immersive experience just to ruin it with such a humdrum story. If you are a fan of adventure games you will have to try it, even if in the end you will be left wanting more puzzles and a story that would do them justice.
Short horror anthology Stories Untold preys on technological nostalgia, which works three times out of four.
The joy of other titles within this market is the length of episodes that you get at each release. A fair amount of content is dropped in each instalment, so if No Code hadn’t taken the approach they had, then this would have been a failure. If you take this game on, you’ll get around 4 hours playtime, which isn’t bad value as it costs less than £9. A copy can be purchased here if you so desire! Do I recommend it? Other than its few shortcomings, it’s a great game and one you should have in your library. Will you be able to gather the clues to solve the puzzles? Play through each of the 4 episodes and link the bizarre plot together, one piece at a time.
Every story is short, clocking in at just around 30-45 minutes each, which makes this the perfect game to pop on during an evening get together where your main goal is to spook your friends. The voice acting is also a high point, as each performance felt believable and different in a way that truly made me sink into each small world as I went. It's not a perfect game or even a perfect port, all things considered, but if you like a good atmosphere and a well-told series of stories, then you should probably go and contradict this game's title when you have the chance.
This version of Stories Untold is not the best - you'll miss the feeling of keyboard typing - but these stories are still worth hearing.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Its four episodes build up such an intriguing, unsettling atmosphere, the experience is well worth it for fans of horror stories.
The shocking and distinct storytelling in Stories Untold will stay with you long after you finish the rather short experience.
Stories Untold is a genre-bending and nostalgic trip back to 80s - the era of text-based games.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
That’s not to say there aren’t problems with Stories Untold. The puzzles aren’t terribly hard, the scares aren’t particularly scary… But for what the game is trying to do, and actually accomplishes in its final act, it’s hard to really care about any of the minor flaws. I cannot recommend this game enough. I can see Stories Untold being one of the best, most unexpected indie gems of this year.
As much as we’d love to go into greater detail about what exactly makes Stories Untold such a successful adventure game, it really is the type of experience you need to check out first-hand.
Everything comes to a head in the final chapter. "The Last Session" does a serviceable job rolling my previous experiences into a cohesive yet predictable end. It may not have been a stunning revelation, however it was a satisfying one. All in all not a bad way to spend about three hours on a Saturday afternoon. Stories Untold is a great journey to take part in and one I'm glad to have taken.
In this text based adventure, the 4 stories packed with clever enigmas and tinted with a very pleasant retro atmosphere are really fascinating.
Review in French | Read full review
Stories Untold is a very interesting and engaging horror title, building a huge story that taps into your imagination before expertly drawing that scope back in. A couple of puzzles don't quite stick the landing, but the game is engaging over its three hours.
Playing an 8-bit style text adventure on the Nintendo Switch is novelty enough but this inspired mix of weird horror and puzzle-solving is more than just a blast of '80s nostalgia.