Follow the Dark Path into a world of Druidic lore and Celtic myths. It is the Autumn Equinox on Barrow Hill, a time of great power, when the ancient standing stones are at their most powerful and dangerous. You have one night to make the offerings, follow the Dark Path and escape Barrow Hill.
Title: Barrow Hill The Dark Path | Series: Barrow Hill | Release Year: 2016 | Genre: Horror Adventure | Developer: Shadow Tor Studios | Publisher: Iceberg Interactive | Platform: PC/Steam | Source: Self-Purchased | Unstarred
Barrow Hill: The Dark Path Review
Barrow Hill: The Dark Path is the follow-up game to Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle (you can check out my review here). The gameplay is point and click with some puzzle solving involved. The movement felt much smoother, as did navigation this time around.
The scenery and atmosphere was a huge improvement over the first game. The forest felt lush and alive and the main antagonist actually felt creepy and threatening. I also like the theme of yes, Baibin is creepy but it’s more because we don’t understand the ancient and primal forces. It certainly felt more interesting than killer rocks. The ‘death’ scenes were also very nice looking with gorgeous scenery.
As nice as the game looked, though, I found their mix of animated characters and actual people to be jarring. For instance, you get a call from Mia and it’s an actual person. Same as the scenes in the sim cards you find. But her ID card is an animated picture, not an actual picture. It’s weird and feels odd.
The voice acting is reasonably good. There was only one scene that felt indifferent. Mia is freaking out because weird stuff is happening and her movements on the video show her panic but the voice over (and it’s clearly a voice-over, her lips aren’t moving in the video) just does not match. It seems very flat compared to what’s going on in the scene. As far as the rest of it goes, though, the voice acting was very good.
The story picks up ten years after the first Barrow Hill incident and you play as the same character. Emma Harry also returns as the radio voice and phone contact which was nice. The station is run down and you’ve got a new force to appease. The puzzles felt organic to the story and felt just right in difficulty. I will warn you beforehand that you will want a pen and paper unless you have a very good memory. A lot of the puzzles require you to remember certain rituals and items. I hope they’ve improved that in later games. I play a lot at night and it’s hard to jot down notes by the light of a laptop screen.
The story flow is much better this time around. You still have certain things to fetch but no tedious backtracking through several clicks just to get one particular item again. So, yes, much, much better.
While I still wouldn’t rate this as high as a Dark Fall game or The Last Crown it was a step up from Barrow Hill: The Curse of the Ancient Circle. Recommended.
GracieKat was the first co-host of Sci-Fi & Scary, Lilyn’s partner-in-crime, and sub-head of the Kali Krew. She reviews horror books, movies, and games for the site. She also does a weekly Focus on the Frightful feature, and is the site list-maker. She is also in control of the Sci-Fi & Scary podcast which will relaunch soon.
