Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance from Sometimes You and Creepy Brothers is the third entry in the grim and macabre adventure series. Check our Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance review!
Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance from Sometimes You and Creepy Brothers is the third entry in the grim and macabre adventure series. This one is once again a 2D adventure game with a solid art style that helps to make everything pop on the screen. Every character you meet, every character you meet, it all showcases all the care and effort poured in by the indie team. I got to review the first Creepy Tale game on Nintendo Switch back in 2021, so I was definitely interested in seeing what Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance was doing on PlayStation 5.
For this one, you’ll be taking the role of the titular Ingrid, a spoiled girl who gets into a lot of trouble when she ends up stepping on a loaf of bread in order to avoid getting her shoes dirty… and she ends up in hell. Harsh? Sure, but it was grandma’s loaf of bread! This is where your journey begins, as you’ll have to help Ingrid survive her journey through the underworld, which is packed with deadly creatures who are up to no good.
At least there’s some good news for this grim scenario. Ingrid end up running into a peculiar demon known as Molek. It turns out Molek has been observing her from the shadows from the moment she set foot in hell. Molek is a sarcastic, talkative, and mischievous demon, but trusting the little demon is her best shot of having a chance to find a way to return home… or to at least stay alive for as long as possible!
You’ll control Ingrid with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, jumping with the X button and interacting with objects and characters with the X button as needed. Since this is an adventure game, that means you’ll need to collect different items from each area that you visit so that you can then use them to solve a puzzle here and there as needed. Press the Triangle button to check the items you’ve collected so that you can put them to good use. Later on, you’ll be able to switch between characters by pressing the Square button. Oh, and you can look at your hands with the R1 button. Because. Because reasons.
Death lurks around every corner, so you’ll have to pay attention to what you’re doing at all times, or else you’ll find yourself in a predicament that will end your existence! As is the case for other games in the Creepy Tales series, Creepy Tales: Ingrid Penance has been inspired by the works of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and other classic authors and their stories. And I mean the original stories from the books, not the sugarcoated versions you’re probably more familiar with.
It’s certainly always hard to try and review an adventure game while trying to avoid spoiling the game’s story or the puzzles that you’ll need to solve. After all, I do want you to have a good time while playing this one! As to avoid this, I’ll only talk a bit about the first puzzles that you’ll run into early in the game so that you can get an idea of what to expect when taking on Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance on PlayStation 5.
Ingrid ends up falling into a brewing cauldron where a pair of monsters seem to now be trying to decide if she’s to be cooked or turned into a statue. She must find a way to escape! By fanning the nearby coals, she’ll manage to add some extra light to the area. This will allow her to take a closer look at the things at the back of the room, including a huge valve that she adds to her inventory. The wheel behind her could be turned if she added the valve. That would help! Once she takes care of adding the valve to the big plaque on the wall, she’ll be able to use it to turn the wheel so that she can check the stuff in jars that the monsters are storing.
By grabbing a jar with a peculiarly feisty maggot inside, you’ll be one step closer to the solution. Ingrid will drop the jar on the floor, and the maggot will crawl over the floor at a fast pace. The nearby demon runs after it, but it’s then that the old hag grabs him, thus keeping her busy for a bit. The monster leaves behind a chicken bone, which you need to grab to feed the carnivorous plant on the right side of the screen so that you can then climb into the metal elevator to escape. This is when you’ll be able to affect Ingrid’s overall behavior by making a good or a bad choice. These choices matter, especially if you’re going for the Platinum trophy.
Yes, the game has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to try and add to your collection! Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance has a long list that is split into 6 Bronze trophies, 17 Silver trophies, and 4 Gold trophies. Right of the bat, I can tell you that you’ll need to play the game multiple times since there are three trophies tied to the good and bad choices you make along the way. One of them requires you to make only good choices, the other one asks that you make only bad choices, and the third one is for making roughly the same amount of good and bad choices along the way.
You’ll have to play the game at least 3 times to be able to get those trophies, but you’ll also need to keep an eye out for a handful of missable trophies and trophies that cancel each other out. I won’t discuss trophies based on completing this or that specific story objective since that would take us straight into spoiler territory, but I do want to mention there’s a trophy for completing the whole game without dying a single time, as well as a trophy for dying a ton of times, so do keep those in mind! Oh, and maybe just look at your hands a ton of times while playing the game. Just trust me on that one.
As the third entry in the grim and macabre adventure series, Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance showcases the growth of indie Creepy Brothers as a game studio. The art is even more detailed than in previous entries, and the music and voice acting do a great job of fitting the overall experience, helping to make this a journey that is easy to recommend. Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance is out on PlayStation 5 with a $9.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This Creepy Tale: Ingrid Penance review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Sometimes You.
