BOOK OF HOURS tries to imitate reading a book. While it accomplishes the idea well, there are some lacking parts.
Whoever said being a librarian is boring, BOOK OF HOURS is here to prove them wrong. The last decade has been showing us how successful a role-playing game can be when it is done right, especially after Baldur’s Gate 3. Sadly, not all developers and players understand the very basics of a CRPG.
The video game industry is filled with games that are unnecessarily tagged as “a role-playing game” such as the Witcher series. It is, of course, debatable whether it has role-playing elements or not, yet it is definitely not mainly a CRPG. A video game surely can have these mechanics and might be offering the players different options, but doing so does not make that game an RPG, does it?
Nowadays, we can see a lot of examples of this type of game, AAA or otherwise. They keep calling their games RPGs despite a few of them including real role-playing mechanics and elements that shift a game’s entire genre. So, what is an RPG? Basically, an RPG is a game that gives you the freedom to act as whoever or whatever you want. You have the freedom to choose, along with carrying the responsibility for your own actions. Role-playing games are my personal favorites since I get to have a chance to play the game in my own way and see different outcomes of my own actions.
RPGs are often considered “re-playable” for this reason; people usually want to see the other choices and outcomes. BOOK OF HOURS is no different. Even though the popularity of this genre may not look promising after the delay of the sector’s favorite, Bioware’s Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, fear not, Weather Factory has come to save us CRPG fans with yet another great example of a good role-playing game after their last work; Cultist Simulator.
Now, enough with general terms and descriptions. What will be waiting for us in the BOOK OF HOURS? At the very beginning, you learn that you are a shipwreck survivor, trying to find anything and anyone to help you. After finding yourself left only with your journal, you decide to seek the help of the village of Brancrug and uncover what and who you were before the unfortunate accident.
This journal is very important because the answers to most of your questions will be hidden in it. You must save it since it will be all wet and dirty after the accident, or you could decide to let the sea claim it back and drown it. Your first stop is the village; it has this depressive, pre-war aura.
Mainly because of that, the villagers do not wish to help a stranger at first, but after earning their favor, they decide to help you. They even give you a huge library to run! This part of the game almost feels like a tutorial until you unlock the different rooms of your library. What makes this library so special and strange?
You will be running an occult library, and you will be possessing different kinds of books in different ways throughout the game. What to do with those books is entirely up to you. You can lift the curses on your books and purify them, study all and make yourself likable, earn the village’s trust, and you will find yourself chasing mystery after mystery. Plus, the game even allows you to do the decorations of the whole library by yourself.
I am one of those people who believes that gameplay and mechanics make a game shine rather than how the game looks like. According to the lore, each person has nine elements that define them and their souls: Chor, Shapt, Fet, Ereb, and five more others. For example, Ereb means pride and fear. If you choose to be led by any of these, you might want to choose this element as the core of your soul. You start the game with the one you desire and gain the others by a skill tree with each level.
BOOK OF HOURS offers you all the features, such as your soul pieces, as cards, along with abilities like speaking and dreaming cards that can be used for information or asking people out of their houses. Doing so allows you to take them to other places and interact with other characters, unlocking new and unique dialogues. You also can visit the Tavern and hire other people to help you in different ways.
Placing the right card with the right person or slot unlocks new memories and so much more within the story. All these features make the game more and more interesting, and they allow the game to be easily noticed among other role-playing games. You do not simply choose some dialogues and move on. Your choices have consequences and they all matter in the game.
Since this is an RPG, you must do the right actions with the right people in order to unlock new areas, rooms, or new memories. Even though there’s an order for everything, the game does not ever tell you what to do. There are no tutorials, no arrows pointing out everywhere, or no pop-ups for guidance, so it is basically, “This is the village; take your belongings too, and good luck finding your way in.” However, if you are familiar with this genre, you are not possibly going to find this a difficult start.
BOOK OF HOURS is a text-based game like Za/Um’s Disco Elysium. Since there’s no tutorial, you must read the whole text in order to understand what happens next, which gave me a different level of satisfaction in figuring things out while playing it. I do not see the lack of guidance as something that is missing.
An RPG would not be an RPG without the “view” and aesthetic. For me and fortunately most players, a game can have all the views and high-end graphics that my graphics card does not like, but graphics only do not make a game, well, a good game. Video games do not need to be as realistic as possible to look good, to be good enough.
However, it plays a great factor in making a video game successful. The visuals and design of BOOK OF HOURS reminded me of Astrologaster, an interactive fictional story that may not be the same, but similar to amazing theatrical artwork and color scheme. Soundtracks also help a game climb the stairs of success.
Calming, sweet melodies accompany you throughout the whole game. They are well-chosen and go wonderful with the game’s theme visuals. They even put a little media player at the top of the screen; should you want to change the tracks, you can from that player or just mute the entire thing.
It’s up to you, but again, the soundtracks are worth listening to on their own. BOOK OF HOURS feels alive. What do I mean by that? Well, simply, the weather changes. Sun and the Moon, you and the people around you likewise. Not finding the same characters with the same attitudes or mood makes the game more playable and the role-playing elements more enjoyable.
Since there is a day and night cycle, you cannot interact with the same characters during both day and night. You must wait until the morning, mostly. Once the day ends, all of your current memories also fade away, so I advise you to use stopping the time or letting it flow features if you want to reveal what they actually mean to you since you lost your memory and all.
Overall, It has been a great experience playing this game, and I had a lot of fun even while I was trying to figure things out. I can say that I definitely see great potential in BOOK OF HOURS since it has unique features and fun, satisfying gameplay. I must mention the graphics once again and keep on praising them.
If you happen to call yourself a CRPG fan, I guarantee that you would enjoy this game like I surely did. BOOK OF HOURS is worth playing for its lovely design, soundtracks, puzzle-like gameplay, and all those stories that are hidden within. The narrative and all of the dialogue are so well-written that it never gets boring.
Even if you are not an RPG fan at all, I still dare you to play this game, and you will definitely find something for yourself. However, if you are not into text-based video games at all, you might find the game utterly boring since reading is essential, which would be understandable, but please hear me out.
You will be missing a lot. Before you go, do not forget to check Weather Factory’s social media, especially their Twitter account. They are quite active over there, and you can find lots of content, or should I say memes, to make your day. BOOK OF HOURS came out on Steam on August 18th. Whatever your video game preferences may be, give this gem a chance. You will not regret it.
