Finished "Perfect Tides" but missed lots of content...

A very Willy Beamish type street...

After playing through summer and fall, and as the ending of Perfect Tides drew near, I had a feeling I had missed out on lots of stuff. At first I was a bit frustrated by that, since I'm more into linear adventure games without optional content and where you can't miss anything that's important.

First time I'm able to enter this room...

But I realized almost immediately, this is exactly the way it's supposed to be. As a teenager - but actually as an adult still - you don't really know what you're doing. You're living your life improvising all the way through. You can make plans, but they won't always work out. You don't always have obvious goals. And there is stuff you will miss out on or fail to do, very often because you weren't even aware of them. That's just what life is like.

Love the winter version of this game!

As soon as I entered the harvest festival, I realized I should have planted the seeds I found at the start of the game. But I never seemed to have a chance to do so; the story just progressed. I failed to get my mom a gift for Hanukkah for the same reason: I never seemed to have the chance to find anything for her. Then I started thinking perhaps it was linked to those photo negatives I developed at school, but I never seemed to have the chance to go back there and actually develop the photos themselves. Other things kept getting in the way, you might say.

I'd have dumped him for his driving style alone...

Knowing all that now, Perfect Tides truly has replay potential. But do I really want to? I experienced Mara's story, basically a full year in Mara's life. Or at least my version of it. You can't have do-overs in real life, and for me the story is quite wrapped up. After 7,5 hours, this is the story I got, based on the efforts (or lack of, apparently) I put into it. And I'm fine with that.

My thoughts exactly...

While I wouldn't immediately describe Perfect Tides as a feel-good game, it does fall into the cozy category for me. There's nothing difficult about it, except perhaps regularly needing to revisit all locations to find that one trigger that will progress the story. But the game has depth too; I really enjoyed the narrator's dialogue, going deep into Mara's feelings. While I didn't always understand Mara's behaviour towards others, I certainly recognized that general feeling of being lost in the world, unseen by others. And this is exactly what makes it stand out between other games. It's the interactive version of a young adult novel, of a coming of age story, and I really appreciate the efforts that went into making this.

Happy Hanukkah!

While I might not play its sequel, Station to Station, immediately, I will definitely check it out some day. For now, it's time for another classic playthrough. I'm going to return to the magical year 1990, and this will be the very first time I'll play a game by Legend Entertainment. It has a totally different user interface and gameplay style than I'm familiar with, so I'm sure it'll be quite the experience!

You can find Perfect Tides on Steam and on GOG!