‘Post Trauma’ Review
Developer: RED SOUL GAMES | Platform: PS5 | Playtime: 6:25 | Platinum: 6:35
Fans of some genres just have it easier than others. While admittedly it wasn’t always the case, nowadays you can’t go two steps without tripping over a Survival Horror title of some description. Alongside the remakes of classics like Resident Evil 2 or Silent Hill 2, there’s a whole swathe of indies who are inspired by said classics. Enter, Post Trauma - the most thoroughly okay game I think I’ve played in a while.
Major story spoilers (I think?) follow, reader discretion is advised
As the disclaimer above implies, I’m not sure I even fully came to understand the story here. You play as Roman, an older gentlemen who works as a train operator. I think in an attempted suicide attempt he ended up causing the death of several others, resulting in him ending up in a Hell like purgatory. Silent Hill 2 is very clearly an inspiration here but inspiration can only go so far. The four or five enemy type present in the game don’t really have any kind of discernible symbolism that I can see. Things are further complicated with a note that makes mention of experimenting on the monsters which throws the purgatory idea for a loop. There’s a fleshy element here which I think the game refers to as The Gloom but again, not sure what’s going on there. Other characters include an (ex?) cop by the name of Carlos who can see the monsters?, Jill - a big spider monster who may be the mother of one of the victims? and finally Freya, a young school girl who is also related to the story somehow. She is also mute and uses text to speech on her phone which is either an interesting story decision or a clever way of getting around finding a voice actor. I’m not trying to be snarky or facetious, charitably the game is vague, uncharitably is that there is no rhyme or reason to the events occurring in the game.
The locations you visit - Train Station, Hospital, Police Station, School and …Ancient City? are all well enough designed if they’re not terribly interesting or intricate by any means. The lack of any game map (beyond those found in the environment) meant navigation was made more difficult. These levels of course house the games puzzles which to give the game it’s credit are all pretty interesting - there’s perhaps too many code based puzzles but the ways in which you discover solve these are unique and interesting enough. The greatest compliment you can give a game like this is that the puzzles caused me to pull a pen and paper out to keep notes.
Combat however does not fare nearly as well. Throughout the game you can collect various melee weapons as well as a pistol and later shotgun. The weapons have no durability nor do they have any kind of information, I just assumed later weapons were better than earlier ones but enemies still seemed to die in the same number of hits. Due to the sparse placement and absolutely non existent AI, you could make it through the entire game without killing anything except two bosses and an enemy in the final boss fight (which is a puzzle boss, not that the game explains that or gives any kind of visual feedback). This isn’t praise in the way like oh wow you can pacifist the game, it’s to say the enemies may as well not even be present for all the difference they make.
I never like ragging on games, especially when they seem like they are projects of passion like many indies are, but I’ve got to call a spade a spade. Post Trauma just isn’t very good. It’s a cheap enough gamble and I suppose I enjoyed it enough to play it through to completion but honestly the Crisp documentary I had on in the background was a better experience. I don’t give numerical ratings on my reviews since moving from TheNerdRock to CraigPlaysGames but if I had to, this is a solid 5/10.
