Whispering Willows is an adventure game staring a girl called Elena. She has an amazing ability: she can project her spirit outside of her body! In this spectral form she can interact with objects (you’ll notice them because they glow) and she will also be able to interact with wicked wraiths and benevolent spirits inside the walls of the Willows Mansion. Does that sound like a game you would play? Then read On!
Whispering Willows was a successfully Kickstarted title that reached $20,747 of a $15,000 base goal. The game’s original release platforms were Steam, linux, Mac, IOS and OUYA. It’s now found its way to Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Vita, so it’s time for us to check this game out.
You play as a young girl who goes in search of her missing father, and along the way you will get to discover all the secrets of the different environments open to you, like the Garden, the Catacombs, the haunted Willows Mansion, and more. As the game start’s with Elena finding her father’s Amulet, a small trinket that has a very special power: it is capable of granting the user access to out-of-body experiences at will. When the amulet glows bright blue, Elena’s spectral form can manipulate the environment, from slipping through narrow gaps to unlocking doors to picking up hard to reach items such as keys or notes.
Some spirits will request Elena’s help in finding things for them, which sorta work like side-quests. Others will provide Elena with important clues for solving puzzles while others will provide her with an item required to continue with her quest.
During some sections of the game, Elena’s amulet will glow red, which mean’s there is an enemy lying in wait, and there is only one thing you can do when this happens. You must run and escape because not being able to escape means an instant death and the subsequent game over for you.
Whispering Willows has a lot of notes and diary pages to find. Said items can aid you if you get stuck, so be sure to read them as soon as you pick them up, especially since they also provide you with general information and on various in-game characters. Each character has a set number of notes to collect, so be sure to look everywhere!
This is a short game that it will take you between 4-7 hours to complete. I did my playthrough in around 5-6 or so hours. There is a total of 19 trophies to earn in this, gorgeous title and it is an extremely easy 100% with 17 Bronze and 2 Silver trophies for your collection.
Whispering Willows is a brilliant 2D adventure game, which is great considering this is the first title from indie studio Night Light Interactive. I’m very happy that LOOT Interactive decided to publish this game on PlayStation 4. The game’s hand-drawn art style is absolutely gorgeous and very well polished, and the voice acting is second to none. I also applaud the studio for how they integrated the light bar functionality and also for using the speaker on the DualShock 4 since these functions made the game feel more immersive. I have loved every minute of playing Whispering Willows, and I didn’t want the game to end! The developers are working on a new title called “Nomad” and I’m definitely looking forward to that release!
