The final episode of the Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate trilogy is finally here, after loving Episode One and Two, I couldn’t wait to see how the story concluded.
If you haven’t played the first episode, I would recommend checking out my review of Episode One, as you will not find too many changes around the gameplay, presentation, comfort and controls.
STORY (INCLUDES SPOILERS)
Hal returns to Astrum close, to find Maia has awoken from her slumber and Astrum close is on the brink of destruction. As you put together a plan to stop the incident in the Bureau he witnessed at the end of episode two, and to unveil the truth of what happened at the clock tower twelve years ago. As the boundary between dreaming and reality gets less clear, it is time to face your final judgement.
GAMEPLAY
As with episode one and two, the main staple of the gameplay is there, with you navigating the city, picking up items, and using your variant skills to re-call memories and where possible directly influencing memories to stop events happening to influence the future.
The team do include and improve on the stealth elements introduced in episode two, but, they do not get overly complex – just seem designed much better. Outside of this they also introduce a lot more puzzle elements into the game, again these are not that difficult, but, are fun to figure out.
Augmented Dreaming (AD) returns for episode three, but only for the first part before you enter the clock tower door. The counselling is handled with a game of ‘Simon Says’ following the same pattern shown in the analyse phase, although the limited segment that changed it up a bit introduced at the end of the last episode does not return.
PRESENTATION
The team have at MyDearest have carried on the trend on the first two episodes, where little has changed in the games presentation style or excellent audio design, they have seemed to add even more when it comes to the new areas you visit inside of the clock tower. The rooms seem more full and busy with what is placed around them.
CONTROLS
TRACKED CONTROLLERS
GAMEPAD
LONGEVITY
Again we see slight reduction in the time taken to complete this final episode, with it taking around four-hours, however, I skipped over a lot of the counselling on this episode. With this in mind it would have added more playtime on if I looked for and completed all of the counselling available in AD, which will open the remaining lore for the game. Meaning if you have yet to play any of Dyschronia and were waiting for all three episodes to be available first, the total playtime for me was around fifteen-hours, with counselling left to do.
REVIEWED USING PLAYSTATION VR 2
For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a review code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press code does not affect my judgement of the product.
REVIEW OVERVIEW
Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate Episode Three, wraps up the story perfectly and brings this awesome trilogy to an end, which is sort of bittersweet as I would have loved explore the world and characters stories more. With improving and expanding on elements that were introduced in episode two, while the story and final investigation keeps you busy and engrossed in the final episode. If you have not played any of the series yet, now is the perfect time, as this has become one of my favorites I have experienced in VR when it comes to story-telling.
GAME DETAILS
Release Date: July 14th 2023
Developer: MyDearest
Publisher: PERPETUAL
Price: US $19.99 / CA $26.99 / €19,99/ £15.99
Bundle: US $39.99 / CA $53.49 / €39,99/ £32.99
