Past Cure

For an indie title created by a fledgeling team of eight, Past Cure is certainly ambitious. It strives to deliver the cinematic experience of classics like Fight Club and Inception, whilst also throwing a blend of different gameplay styles into the mix. Past Cure is the first release from German Developer Phantom 8 Studios and has recently seen a release on every major platform (besides the Switch), but does it meet the lofty ambitions of its creators?

You play as Ian, an ex-soldier who is haunted by intrusive nightmares and hallucinations after being treated like a lab rat in Syria. The last three years of Ian's memory are hazy, and he has resorted to taking blue pills from the dark web to keep his sanity in check. With his mental health deteriorating, Ian is desperate to discover what happened to him and seek out revenge on his former captors. The narrative caught us in a web of intrigue and we desperately wanted to find out what the significance was of Ian's nightmares. The main problem, however, is that the voice acting is wooden and little time is spent fleshing out characters like Ian and his brother Marcus.

Before we delve into the gameplay we should perhaps address Past Cure's fundamental flaw - its lack of identity. Past Cure's ambitions are wild, and they've flirted with elements of psychological horror, third-person action, and puzzle-solving but there's no cohesive thread tying these aspects together. It's not just the lack of direction that's the problem either, each of these styles feels sloppy in execution (we'll come to that later). Perhaps over the course of a much longer story there could have been room to toy with more styles, but in Past Cure's fleeting six-hour campaign, it just feels confused.

The third chapter - Past Secrets - was the one with perhaps the strongest opening. Trapped in one of your nightmares, a porcelain figure stares vacantly at you, a gun in its hand as it sits behind a chess board. After you sneak off and find a missing chess piece (the king) you return to the board to find that all the pieces are set. Refusing to play games, Ian throws the king to the ground and is left desperately gasping for breath. It seems your refusal and any false moves made will cause you harm. This concept is quickly thrown out the window though and you're whisked off to solve some tedious puzzles with your powers (there's even a part where you must walk through a literal maze to trigger switches).

As we mentioned briefly, Ian has powers which are a result of the experiments conducted on him. He only has two: astral projection and time manipulation. The astral projection ability reminded us of Watch Dogs, as it can be used to deactivate security cameras and scout out the area ahead for enemies. Time manipulation can be to land those tricky headshots and sneak around corners with reduced risk. If these powers are used without taking blue pills Ian will start to lose his sanity and the screen will blur your focus. We enjoyed this mechanic as it restricts you from exploiting the abilities and explores Ian's dependency on black-market drugs.

In its more action-heavy segments Past Cure feels especially mediocre. The fourth chapter is the worst example of this and you spend much of it crawling through vents and shooting up the same bland enemies through an endless loop of carparks. The shooting here feels imprecise and there's no option to snap behind cover like in Gears of War, for example. There's also these suicidal guys in white shirts who speed towards you and try to karate chop you in the face before you even flinch. Stealth doesn't fare too much better than shooting and as you can't hide behind cover you'll have to linger out in the open and you never feel truly hidden. Sometimes stealth doesn't even feel like an option as some guards will gaze longingly at your only path.

Past Cure opts for a gritty cinematic style which for the most part is impressive considering the modest team behind it. Sometimes it feels bordering on AAA quality, particularly within the gloomier nightmare sequences, but there are a few notable imperfections. Animations for stealth kills are laughably bad and most NPCs look the same and suffer from poor facial designs. The biggest offence, however, is with regards to the level design. Many environments lack detail and reuse assets throughout, giving you a nagging sense of déjà vu. "Have I been here before?" you'll likely ask yourself in Chapter 6 whilst walking through another hotel lobby with the same furniture arrangement.

There is a total of seven chapters and they will take you roughly six hours to complete. While there is the option to revisit past chapters, there's pretty much no incentive to return besides unlocking all the trophies (or achievements) and finding some useless collectables. It is not even like the gameplay can be approached in different ways either - you follow the same linear path and there's little thrown in to make the experience fresh on a second run. Once the credits roll you'll be pretty much done with Past Cure which is disappointing considering its £30 pricing.

Crushed under the weight of too many poorly realised ideas, Past Cure struggles to hold its own identity. Its seven-chapter story is a bizarre mashup of psychological horror, third-person action, and puzzle solving, but there's no kind of cohesive thread to tie it all together. The gunplay is imprecise, and repeated environmental design conjures up a troubling sense of déjà vu. We did find Past Cure's concept intriguing and some of the dream sequences had standout moments, but these weren't worth trudging through its failings for. If you're interested in this one we'd advise you approach it with caution or, better yet, wait for the price drop.