The Journey Down: Chapter One Review

"Off To Somewhere"

Campaign

The Journey Down: Chapter One is an old school point and click adventure that carries an Afro-Caribbean vibe. It's a bit odd in that sense, but chill and really runs with it. In this small outskirts area Bwana and his pal Kito struggle to make it pumping gas when they can. An unexpected visitor arrives and it prompts the group to get their old plane going for one somewhat epic adventure. They're interested in solving an old mystery and to do so in this first part they need to repair their plane.

This has you moving from place to place finding hidden secrets. This includes the process of building parts in order to get this old scrap heap flying once again. It has some elements of humor and a decent mystery in a couple hours of play based on how fast you progress. I didn't find the narrative to be too thrilling, but some might like the style. I wish there was more context or motive as events just sort of roll along.

Gameplay

The visuals were alright, not the most detailed of worlds and you could tell that this was ported from a release many years back. The style is very distinct however and I liked the animations. They were creative in how things were placed and it wasn't too frustrating to solve the problems. The controls were fine, operated well though I did find it super slow to drag the cursor across the screen. It was like slow motion at times, which is how a lot of the gameplay in general felt.

The Conclusion

The Journey Down: Chapter One is an alright start to a series, more context is needed however to make the characters matter more. Your pal has basically zero character development the entire time. It takes the old school point and click style to the console in a fairly decent way, but it still feels like a remnant of the past at times. The narrative is alright, but it does lack cohesion and I wasn't exactly sure what the goals were here. It was mostly just a quick cutscene to set things up and then random object collection. You stumble along some creative moments for a good laugh at times and it never gets too serious.

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The Journey Down: Chapter One Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by ID@Xbox

Rating Overall: 6.2