So far so foreboding, and Draugen does an excellent job of ratcheting up the spookiness as you go about your journey. That, coupled with their boat suddenly disappearing from the dock, means there’s nothing for it but to investigate the unsettling town and uncover what happened to its inhabitants, and possibly Elizabeth along with them. Rather than a big Norwegian welcome (Velkommen?) though, the pair disembark to find the village completely and rather eerily empty. From the last letter he received from his dear sis, Edward believes that Elizabeth is somewhere to be found in the quiet, rural Norwegian village of Graavik, and is driven to travel there from Massachusetts, meet the mysterious Fretland family who live there, and find out why he hasn’t heard from his sibling since.
The plot joins Americans (no doubt of high class backgrounds hence their propensity for Britishisms) Edward Harden and his younger, annoying companion Lissie on their quest to find Edward’s sister Elizabeth (or Betty, as she is also confusingly called). But despite a surprising mid-game plot reveal and some genuinely creepy atmosphere, the upper class British slang is just too grating and the story eventually too overwhelming for even this old bean to fully delight in. Golly, there’s some frightfully spiffing twists and turns in Draugen when it isn’t going overboard with the old-fashioned dialogue, what what! The first-person “fjord noir” (an unusual sub-genre which I can only hope encourages future anomalies like “car park-erotic drama”) from the studio behind Dreamfall Chapters is set in picturesque 1920s Norway and draws you into an intriguingly busy narrative filled with cursed mines, Nordic mythology, family feuds and potential child murder.
0 kommentar(er)
