How does this psychological visual novel hold up?
Dry Drowning is an investigative thriller-oriented visual novel set in the futuristic dystopian universe of Nova Polemos. A shady socio-political situation dragging everything down to the abyss, a serial killer drawing strength from this darkness, a tormented detective and his assistant craving for redemption.
Dry Drowning challenges the player to find the truth, going through ambiguous characters, riddles, clues and unexpected events, while telling an extremely compelling and mature story.
The game handles like a point-and-click game, but mixes in the investigative tools and options that you would associate with a game like Phoenix Wright. The story plays out like a visual novel with an intriguing mystery and interesting characters.
Dry Drowning gives the player choices that will impact the story, but there’s no “good” or “bad” decisions, it’s just what you feel the best course of action is. The mechanic pays off and pays off well. There are 3 different endings over the 20+ hour visual novel. I love the dystopian setting with the detective angle, it feels a bit like Blade Runner meets Sherlock and after playing through to see each ending, I can say that the journey was more than worth it. The story alone is worth going through the game multiple times,
The Verdict
Dry Drowning is a superb graphic novel with point-and-click gameplay. It’s story is gripping from start to finish and trust me, you’ll want to see each ending. I personally can’t wait for the Xbox One version next year so I can go through it all over again.