Bye Sweet Carole - Review

When I first saw Bye Sweet Carole, I am sure like many others, I was captivated by the games Disney-esq visuals and was keen to play the game. Now that I have, I can say that the visuals are one of the strongest parts of the game, but it is not all bad.

The game has you take control of Lana, an orphan who lives in the early 1900s and is attempting to find out what happened to her friend Carole. Along her journey, she finds herself drawn in a world of magic and also different points in time. Early on she encounters a being known as Mr Kyn and while he appears to be made from shadows, he poses a real threat to Lana. Thankfully, she is not alone as she has help in the form of Mr Baessie and her gift of being able to transform into a rabbit. As you progress through Bunny Hall, the place Lana calls home, you will encounter various folks of the more villainous persuasion, but for the most part Lana is on her own. What makes this journey interesting is that you are thrown between the past and the present day, so things will change depending on that, which does keep you on your toes. The story is not in-depth, but there is a fair amount of info drops that will feed that narrative itch.

Where the game shines and sadly fails is with the gameplay, which can honestly be described as Little Nightmares meets Maniac Mansion. There are really two parts to the gameplay, the Maniac Mansion aspect of walking around a room, trying to find the right item, to then get another item and then move forward. As someone who grew up playing that game and Monkey Island and Indiana Jones, I appreciate some of the puzzles that were thrown my way, but some of them were just weird. The other half of the gameplay often sees you outrunning a threat, be it Mr Kyn or an adult from Bunny Hall, these moments are ok, but the controls do tend to get in the way.

That is honestly the weakest part of the entire experience, the controls. They are not broken in their use, but they are a little to picky at times in when you can use them. A lot of the game takes place within small rooms that Lana will have to climb up and over things, or uses stairs or ladders to reach other levels. The problem is that until you are in the right spot to trigger a climb, you won’t be able to. Now these is not a problem when you are able to take your time in solving a puzzle, but when you are being chased, or need to do something with speed, it becomes an issue. The controls are not complex, you only use a handful of buttons and when a prompt appears it will tell you the button to press, it just requires you to be in the exact right spot, in order to use them.

One of the game’s biggest draws is without a doubt its presentation, because like I said before, it just screams Disney. Lana looks great in both her human forms and she is equally as adorable in her rabbit form. The world, which starts off bright and sunny, quickly becomes a dark and foreboding place and the backgrounds and creature designs reflect that. My Kyn and Mr Baessie have some fun looks to them and even the other characters look great. Where the visuals fall apart though is with the limited number of animations for characters. This is not something where all characters walk the same, but rather when characters have extended speeches, they often cycle back and forth with one animation. This plays out as if they were moving forward, then back and then repeating for as long as the speech goes on and its an odd choice. I feel they would have been better to not have them move so much and just animate their faces on their own.

Speaking of speeches, there is voice work in the game, and it is ok. There are not going to be any awards for the work, but it gets the job done. The best way I can describe it is if the game is the cinema release from Disney, the voice work is for the TV series that was spun up to cash in on it, not the best but passable. The games music fairs slightly better, it has some great undertones of danger, even when you can’t see any immediate threat. Each of the stages gets a great enhancement due to the music and I really liked that; it made me feel connected to the world.

Bye Sweet Carole is an ok game, it tells a nice story of someone trying to find their missing friend, with just enough of a mystery to have you keep playing. Some of the puzzles will challenge some folks, but they are pretty standard puzzles. The animation is the star of the game, but when you notice the shortcuts, it loses some of its magic. The games main draw are the visuals, but mystery about Carole and the puzzles will keep you playing, as long as you can get passed the controls.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Maximum Games

The Pros

The games art style is amazing, though when they loop things, it breaks the immersion

The puzzles are fun and very old school in their approach…

The Cons

…but there are some that feel a little to obscure in their solutions

The controls are not great, which can lead to more fighting against them