Phoenix Springs Review - A Vibrant Reinvention Of The Point-And-Click

This article is part of a directory: Phoenix Springs: Complete Guide And🦂 Walkthrough

I burst into tears when I finished , but I wasn’t quite sure why. Even now, days later, I still have no ide▨a what precisely it was that moved me so much. I know that I felt a profound sense of loss, like I was grieving something, but what was it? I guess that’s in keeping with Phoenix Springs’ motif of forgetting – knowing that♑ something is gone but not knowing what.

Phoenix Springs is a highly cerebral game. Made in the tradition of classic point-and-click adventures, you’re put in the shoes of Iris Dormer, a tech journalist searching for her estranged brother, Leo. This journey wil🍌l bring her to Phoenix Springs, a stunning oasis in the middle of a barren desert, but first it leads you through her memories of pursuing leads as she first begins her journey to track Leo down.

Iris about to Talk To a Kid in Leo's former neighbourhood.

One of the most interesting things about this game is how you play. Traditional point-and-click games have you interacting with things in t🎃he environment, collecting items, and mashing the things in your inventory with ✨each other and into puzzles. Phoenix Springs isn’t quite like that. While you can still interact with your environment – you can talk to, look at, and use whatever’s around you – you don’t have an inventory.

Instead, Iris has leads that you can access by clicking her, each represented by a simp🌟le bubble of text in a sea of other phrases. These are more abstract than simple items, of course, which makes gameplay much more interesting and allows for much more logical problem-solving. Matching leads to the right evidence is incredibly satisfying, even if there's a lead or two that felt a little obvious.

You can pair these leads with objects in the environment to draw connections, or ask people about them in order to collect information. This allows you to unlock more leads and get further in your investigation. The puzzles are challenging, but never 🏅unfair or lacking logic – there’s a walkthrough linked in the game, but I managed to find my way through it with enough patience and experimentation. You don't have to smash your head against puzzles by trying to match every lead to an object, though doing so might unlock some interesting achievements.

I particularly appreciated that even when I matched leads incorrectly, the game would acknowledge my logical train of thought even as it refuted it. Iris said some variation of “💧I see the vision, but that’s wrong” many times in my playthrough.

You can also use leads on Iris so she thinks about them or remembers the conte𓄧xt in which she found them, which is helpful as the game’s story gets more complex. In fact, when the game starts, she has just one lead: Leo Dormer. Using this lead on her sends her into a full-blown flashback and kicks the game off, bringing you through multiple scenes – this flashback alone was so engrossing that when it ended, I realised I’d forgotten I was in a memory at all.

Importantly, not every lead will go anywhere. You may find lots of clues, but many of them will prove useless. Helpfully, once you’ve finished a scene, all the red herrings and false leads you’ve come across will💖 be greyed out so you won’t be tempted to continue chasin꧋g them and waste your time.

Iris approaching a DJ in front of the decks.

These twists on the familiar mechanics of the point-and-click are interesting enough on their own, but Phoenix Springs is also an astonishingly striking, polished package for those innovations. The art style is breathtakingly beautiful and minimal, rendering its neo-noir environments in vibrant yellow, green, and red, with touches of pale muted blue. Every scene is a work of art, playing with perspective, texture,ꦐ and movement.

The sound design is just as delightful – I love hearing the echo of Iris’ heels clicking against the ground as she moves through a deserted building, her hips swaying gently. I love the chirping of birds and rustling of lea꧂ves in the forest, the howling of wind in a desert.

Stylish Point-And-Click Phoenix Springs Began Life As A Noir Mov𓆏ie

Phoenix Springs is set to be an intriguing and unforgettable𒀰 point-and-click game, but that wasn't always the idea.

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Phoenix Springs is also fully voice-acted, and Iris is a pitch perfect narrator. Her voice is almost monotonous, always even-keeled and never tinged with emotion. She relays conversations to you, telling you what people are saying and what she thinks of it. Sometimes, you’re treated to a brief cutscene when you meet a new character or find an important object, and hea𒐪ring Iris’ perfunctory yet poignant observations over these gorgeously framed interjections might be my favourite thing about the game.

Perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot of substance behind the po🍨werful aesthetics – I’m just not sure exactly what to make of it. Phoenix Springs starts out like a regular detective story, but quickly spirals into the surreal. It’s hard to describe exactly what happens, mostly because I’m not very sure about that myself, but that’s the beauty of it.

Despite Iris’ concreteness as a protagonist and her single-mindedness about her g🅠oal giving you a path to follow, the game leads you on a meandering, almost frightening journey through a world that defies rationality. Your questions land on deaf ears, or are answered with existentialism, or offer responses that peek at cosmic horror. You want to make sense of Iris’ story, but there’s little to make sense of, little to turn over in your hands. All of it is stunningly written, littered with lines impress𝔍ive in their brevity and beauty.

Phoenix Springs deals with the abstract, from its twist on genre mechanics to its narrative, and I’ve never seen anything quite like i♈t. I’ve tried to find꧋ examples to compare it to and come up short. The point-and-click genre may never be the same, and neither will I.