Erica is an interactive psychological thriller full motion video experience where the decisions you make influence the story as it unfolds leading to consequences for your actions leading to one of 6 possible different endings.
FMV games are not a new genre for sure, but often they will drag you out of the experience for the gameplay elements with the video’s in between however in erica the story unfolds seamlessly with an ongoing movie experience with cleverly designed moments to keep you interacting often and feeling immersed within the experience as not only are you taking the decisions in the mind of erica you will often have the opportunity to look around or open up items to find things inside and feel as though you are the character, whilst remaining an ongoing cinematic experience so you never feel out of the moment.
The story itself obviously revolves around Erica as she is thrown into a situation of facing traumatic events of her past and must return to a mental hospital her parents had involvements with, and from here you will meet and interact with a series of characters, and often be faced with decisions providing branching paths of what you do, where you go and who you choose to speak to. This provides an interesting journey into the inside story of the patients and doctors of this mental institution as well as the subtle balance of treading the line between what is real and what is imagined or otherwise influenced in what is experienced within the game and a lot of how you respond to situations can also influence how the world is percieved both by yourself but also will influence how the game conveys events towards yourself.
I found the game very compelling and became quite emotionally attached to the wellbeing of erica as I was faced with several morale choices, especially towards the end and that’s something this game does very well to build up the experience from beginning to end as both the tension and also how dramatic events unveil over time towards quite explosive endings potentially, and I do appreciate how well they’ve designed that you cannot possibly learn everything which occurs through one single playthrough as it is designed for you to try out other choices and do other things to unveil more of the story to ultimately find out the secrets of what is going on in this establishment and within your own head.
You might wonder how this would be a great thing as surely this would break the story, but clever storytelling begins with Erica being tutored to be able to see the future, and therefore every playthrough could be considered a different vision of a possible future which you are experiencing and ultimately learning from to be able to take the best decisions in actual events in the real future.
All of the events within the game were so well designed and well written as well as being well acted by some of our countries finest actors and actresses who all gave such great performances that I felt truly a part of the experience throughout, if you look close enough you will even notice during many of the interactive timelines there are many subtle events like the doctor giving glances to the detective and things like this which not only give you information if you look hard enough but also shows the attention to detail put into every part of this narrative experience.
Holly earl put in an award winning performance as the lead role portraying all of the possible decisions you could partake in how you would expect the character to react when you made those decisions, expressing so many different emotions and moods throughout the entire experience which undeniably tied everything together.
The game will last around an hour and a half per run, and considering you have 6 possible endings to unlock and many ways to interact in very different circumstances and many opportunities for branching paths to the storyline throughout and you take this consideration alongside the price of buying a movie on dvd, or even going to the cinema in many establishments these days alongside the truly stupendous performances of everyone involved within this experience, and how you will be kept a part of this throughout with pretty much constant decisions and interactions throughout, and then take into consideration the price of this game you cannot argue that this game goes above and beyond and definitely deserves an indelacio star, as do all of the performers involved.
Essentially you are getting a potential 6 movie variant combination as well as an amazing enthralling and immersive gameplay experience throughout for the price of a single movie, and even cheaper than many indie games come out at, with a great cast of performers you cannot argue that this is a bargain.
Get Erica for yourself now at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1514930/Erica/?curator_clanid=6860437
