Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 5, 2022

  It's The Cat Lady again

  I hope i don't get any flack for this, in the end of the day, this is my opinion. Having finished this game i feel like Harvester Games's games are running around in circles, or, to be blunt, stagnating. And it's a bit of a shame, because Burnhouse Lane is by far the most polished game from the studio. It is almost devoid of the rough edges that were accompanying their previous titles. The artwork is great, the music and sounds are refined to the point of them almost being unnoticeable (in a good way), the voiceacting is almost spotless, the core gameplay is polished and the dialogue is the most human-sounding out of all 5 games released so far. All the boxes are ticked - the cinematic direction, the dark topics, the supernatural, everything you expect from Harvester Games is here. But that, in my opinion, is its main problem. This is all the stuff that in one way or another was tackled in the previous titles. Not many risks were taken and not many fresh and original ideas were brought to the table, compared to everything that came before it. This is harvester's comfort zone and it kinda feels uninspired as a result. And it's hard to write all this because this is a really quality product, that is definetely worth its money, and yet i cannot help but feel that i've seen it all before. If you are new to Harvester Games then this one will be a good entry point as it is the least demanding from the player - gameplay or story wise. But if you've played through previous Michalski's titles and would not call yourself a die hard fan (which as far as i understand is a rare occasion), then i suggest to wait until their next game. I truly hope they try something new, because this is definitely the least interesting albeit the most technically competent game from one the most interesting indie developers out there.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2022

  With the small time I had now with the game I'm getting The Cat Lady vibes. Wish more people knew those indie games. So far, so good.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 9, 2022

  It was... fine. I'm not a f%&$# hypocrite to give a thumbs down to a game I completed in pretty much one sitting. I would also be very surprised if I remembered anything from it in a month. Which is very annoying, because at its best it feels like a worthy rival/successor to Silent Hill 2. It's a great exploration of sickness and going into dark places, both internal and external, often simultaneously. I wouldn't call it scary in a 'horror-scary' sense, but it often feels deeper and more subtle than most horror media out there. It's more of a tense thriller with very good pacing, and the gameplay is both simple and engaging. The presentation is also great, visual and audio. The soundtrack is well worth a listen on its own, and the voice acting is incredible. The lows are not THAT low, but a lot of it is just... Not amazing. Angie doesn't really feel like an interesting or a deep character in any way. Her interactions with other characters often don't sound believable. It doesn't help that it heavily relies on conventions when it makes you expect something more realistic. A significant part of the game feels like a less inspired rehash of The Cat Lady - it's not criminal in itself or even bad, but it also doesn't have that spark. Some scenes are downright annoying to play - they don't last long to truly bother, sure, but I doubt I'll ever want to replay it. I feel like the overall intended direction for a good ending is pretty clear - and despite doing my best to follow it exploring everything, being generally nice and reasonable, not lashing out, resolving everything as peacefully as possible and being a responsible kitten, I still got the choice of the two crappiest endings - and it just felt completely unnecessary and underwhelming. The situation presented in the end, a big part of what the game was about, also felt like a betrayal of the game's themes. So in the end, the game is generally good, but if you haven't played The Cat Lady yet, absolutely go and play that first. If you have and liked it, there's a high chance you'll enjoy this one too. It goes in a 'Silent Hill-like interaction with the environment' direction more than it repeats 'meaningful personal interaction with the characters', and it doesn't always succeed, but it also doesn't really truly fail. It's... fine.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2022

  I've only played 20 minutes so far but already am loving everything I see. Rem's previous games take three spots of my top five best games ever made and I am so excited to see where this goes. A seven day 10% discount on release too? Crazy. Excited! Also for anyone wondering it runs OOTB on Arch Linux without having to mess with Proton which is a huge thumbs up.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 6, 2023

  I'm a huge fan of The Cat Lady, but as much as it pains me, I cannot recommend Burnhouse Lane as I would the previous Harvester Games' work. Burnhouse Lane feels like yet-another attempt at squeezing The Cat Lady's plot. Girl struggles with severe depression, girl decides to take own life, girl meets a ghostly/devilish being that asks her to kill N-amount of evil people. Except this time, there's no subtlety and there's barely any space for "artistic interpretation" when it comes to evil. But more than that, the game's design is flawed to a fault. Mechanically, it introduces a combat system that adds nothing to the game, and it's almost exclusively bothersome as it's wonky and uncomfortable. There are also a couple of veeery long platform-like scenes when controlling characters other than the protagonist, which again add nothing to the game and are mostly frustrating to go through. But the real deal breaker for me is the story design. Characters have no consistency, they behave as completely different people at different points in the game, with very little development and sometimes no explanation of why their attitude changed so much all of a sudden. As an example, at one point in the game I confided in a character that reacted with empathy and love. Further into the game, I talked to that character again and I was given the option to confide the exact same information to them (as if I hadn't done so before?!), only for them to react in an entirely different manner, also making it evident that it was the first time they heard about it. I guess the developers didn't have time to put those two possible paths of the story together in a consistent manner, and simply wished no one would choose those dialogue options? On top of everything, there's an uncomfortable amount of offensive remarks, especially towards "big" people. The main character is a bully for absolutely no reason and eventually softens up about half-way into the game, but some extremely rude and distasteful pieces of dialogue cannot be skipped. I really don't know how Harvester Games took this awful turn.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 2, 2023

  Loved the Cat Lady and the other games before this, but couldn't finish this as i dragged myself through actionscenes, stealth, platforming and bad save-checkpoints.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 10, 2022

  Although I've progressed far enough, I will not finish this game because there is absolutely no way I am retrying _that_ tedious and dead stupid chase sequence again (headless lady with a chainsaw). Which is also why I think there is little to none replayability value to this game: some chapters are just so dragged out that you wouldn't want to waste your time waddling over yet another dozen of straight corridors back and forth just to get a new dialogue line or a different ending or whatever. I wanted to like this game, I really did. It's a huge progress over Rem's The Cat Lady, which remains one of my favorite games. You can clearly see that Burnhouse Lane is a passion project: a lot of attention was put into backgrounds, (gorgeous) music, visual effects, but then there are those atrocious animation, mediocre dub and over-the-top cheesy and naive story. In my opinion, the author has exhausted the 2D corridor thriller format and is ready to explore something different. His first several games sure are clunky, but they have a certain charm, one that makes you sigh once and shortly brush away the clunkiness for good, - while Lorelai and Burnhouse Lain feel like author is painfully fixated on the same story, theme and format, which makes each new game less original and more childish and goofy. The characters are shallow and boring and the story is so all over the place, that it's difficult to give a damn about anything going on on the screen. Like how villains are your standard "ooga-booga-I-am-evil" puppets, it's just embarrassing. This game was promising, but oh well. Really looking forward to the OST coming out, and will definitely check out Rem's next game.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 18, 2023

  It is good, and my second favourite after Cat Lady. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm a huge fan of Harvester games. I personally found Downfall and Lorelai borderline forgettable, but I won't be forgetting this. Pros: I'd say graphics but more, artwork - It's a visual upgrade from The Cat Lady for sure, the artwork is beautiful and psychedelic. Music - The music will make you reminisce over Cat Lady and you'll find yourself humming 'The Noises She Makes In Her Bed' as you're taking a break to hang laundry, I really enjoyed the muted piano version of it. It felt calming and like a nice relaxing break inbetween the madness. Characters - The characters are memorable and full of life, you will love/hate them, George is a true OG, Jenny is reprehensible, in Cat Lady, beyond Susan, Mitzi and the incel, imo other characters were just there to progress the story and were forgettable. Pacing - Pacing is well thought through, things will go from absolutely insane/taking down the bad guys to peace, on the farm, making sandwiches, playing games with Ciaran, feeding Richard. I really enjoyed these little interludes between the madness (I also enjoyed the madness but I enjoy well thought out pacing). Story - Lastly I want to say the story. Yes there are plotholes that I will mention below (spoiler warning for that!), however, I wanted to say this story will stick with me. The serial killers imo are even more outlandish. I do wish they were a little more surprising. Like with Susan, she wasn't immediately told her targets, they came to her in some way or another, you were always sceptical of everyone around her.. The only serial killer that happens with here is the first one and they were pretty obvious from the get go. I wish there was more mystery, more not outwardly obvious bad characters that start off nice that you work out are evil - that would be nice. But that's not so much a complaint, they just chose another direction and that's fair. Still enjoyable, still VERY memorable. Lastly, I loved seeing a special guest at the end, no spoilers but if you know, you know, and I love that they kept it that way, it gave me such a fangirl moment. Mechanics - I want to preface this by also saying there are cons to this, as they certainly tried some new things and it's debateable whether they worked or not. However, others did, please keep sandwich making and kitty powers! Cons Bugs - I had 3 major bugs. One during the psych ward wax museum puzzle. When you're supposed to split the rod and pull the lever with both wax dolls, some how, I was able to walk all the way left with one of the wax dolls, but then not all the way right/back to the lever again as I was blocked by a wall.. Also unable to climb up the bed to make my way around again. I was just stuck and forced to reload and replay the WHOLE segment up until that point. The second major bug was endgame, I'll post a screenshot, but my camera didn't pan down, so I couldn't see the ground which meant I couldn't see Omars body with an axe on the ground to pull it out of. I had to walk around that area mashing E until the prompts came up. Granted because I worked out it was bugged, I didn't have to reload, but if I had have done, I'd have been very annoyed. I will say the endgame doesn't feel polished.. And feels much less like they QA'ed it.. As when I got to the spider boss, I had an issue with my gun. I firstly made a mistake of using my desert eagle as the first bullet, mistakenly thinking the boss fight was damage based.. However, suddenly the gun changing mechanic changes in that fight. It was fine by the save point above, I could swap guns with ease, however in that fight, when I went to swap to the other gun, Angie just de-equips. It still has the gun prompts on the bottom left however, but it makes it VERY annoying. However, turns out I was doing the boss wrong but there was NO indication of this. Saving - I'd argue if you're going to have the smoking to save mechanic, which is fine, and NO chapter select (which can also be fine and I understand this choice is made because how can you chapter select when your choices matter), then at least give us save slots ! Please!! I have to replay the WHOLE game probably 2 more times for all of the achievements. And you're a story based game, you just have to accept that the replay value is not high. Plotholes - There are a few.. The one that gets me is in the bad ending where the endgame events take place in December, you then get a little pop up saying that Angie stayed at the farm until March, goes to Japan, and then wants to go back to the farm to be informed that George passed away from a fire, which is hinted to have been caused by the drug dealer in the basement or 'who knows'.. So you're telling me he just lived down there for 4 months locked up and THEN decided to burn the place to the ground? Unless he eats generator fluid and like 8 weed plants, I don't think he'd live that long.. Also if Aarno is killed, SO much of the story is changed for the worse. A lot lies on that one moment. This is when I very much wish there was save spots because at the time I didn't know this :/. Also never get to find out who the new Walter Green really is.. Which has left me feeling a bit empty, I'll have to watch a walkthrough where Aarno lives to find this out. I dunno - those sections felt a little unpolished. OH and the lab as someone who has smoked a metric butt load of weed, I found it a bit demonising to have the lab full of weed plants -_-. Is that what Jennys crippling drug addiction is now?? Like.. What? Lol. And what the reverend was using to drug his girls?? Made no sense. I feel like more thought should have been put into the lab. Lastly Joyce's 'change of heart', she was selling drugs to a reverend, who was then using them to drug girls. It's made unclear if she knew his purpose, but her change of heart felt a bit too easy. She is deep down pretty evil. I guess it was made to progress the plot points but I felt the ending was rushed.. Combat?!? - I'll never forget being Susan Ashworth shooting the cannibal lady with her double barrel shotgun. That was a classic, there was no bullet counting, reloading etc, it was merely an addition versus a whole mechanic. I dunno I found the controls clunky, sometimes she'd just 'miss' at random, you really have to make sure enemies are close and not doing any kind of animation, otherwise bullets don't register. Less gun play more puzzles please. Boss fights - Eh. Inbetween a hit or miss. They were OK. I feel like the game would have benefitted from less. And if you unlock the desert eagle, there's only like two real opportunities where it would be remotely useful, otherwise, any other circumstance feels like a wasted bullet. Especially spider fight, at least make the endgame boss damage related if you're going to have one as everyone saves their special bullet for that moment and it felt a bit bleh to have it wasted. I could have reloaded the save but at that point there was no point anyway. ___________ Conclusion: The brothers have done it again. It's not the perfect game, but that's fine, It will still stick with me and it still deals with some dark subjects which is what they are known for. Flaws listed above aside, it's worth the play. But if you've never played a Harvester game before, play Cat Lady and if you like it, play the others. I wouldn't recommend this ahead of Cat Lady.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 3, 2023

  I think Harvester Studio's games were better when they weren't so damn moralistic. Having a kid and growing old are the most important things in life? Uh... Giving a cigarette to a selfish blonde will - totally coincidentally - lead to the death of an old friend? I mean... if it's a Crime and Punishment story, how about at least making a plausible connection how one thing led to another? Among other minor annoyances: - Some things just don't make sense. Like leaving a dangerous psycho criminal with a gun lying on the floor. - At times, it feels like deja vu... I mean, I loved The Cat Lady, but... - Graphics are for some reason worse than in the previous title Lorelai. This game isn't about graphics, for sure. Still, weird. So... While this game isn't bad by any means, I just haven't enjoyed it as much as any of the previous titles. Anyways, waiting for the next one!
• gamedeal user

  Mar 3, 2023

  Loved it! Been a fan for a long time and I'm amazed you keep delivering My only gripes are: * Making a good sandwich is really hard * Can't give enough pets to the cat squad