Blind Men Review – More Novel Than Visual

Blind Men fancies itself as a visual novel X dating simulator, and as a fan of both genre’s, I was instantly intrigued. Does this whacky tale of super villains deliver? Or did it leave me covering my eyes? Read on to find out.

STORY

The story behind Blind Men is an unusual one – You play as Keegan, the nephew of a retired supervillain, who so desperately wants to be a part of the ‘family business’. Uncle Sphinx has tried to keep Keegan out of trouble and on the straight and narrow but, I mean, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree does it?

Uncle Sphinx agrees to give Keegan a chance – all he has to do is get into the League of Evil – and how does he do that? By committing a single crime, of course! Sphinx gives Keegan some Henchmen and a mission; Steal a pricey diamond (standard) or kidnap a professor… the choice is left to you. The story alters – slightly – depending on what you choose.

GAMEPLAY

As this is a Visual Novel, the majority of the game is spent reading – if that’s not your thing, quit while you’re ahead. You will be offered very few dialogue options, which is surprising for a game of this genre. Usually, you are required to make various choices to connect with the character and story, this wasn’t the case in Blind Men.

Since the story wasn’t appealing to me at all, I quite often found myself getting bored whilst playing and it ended up feeling like a chore to do so. No game should feel like a chore but unfortunately, it was for me. There were numerous spelling and grammatical errors in the writing which was an instant put off too.

Very occasionally there will be action sequences in which you are required to quickly press a certain button but it’s nothing that gets the heart racing and often isn’t anything of any importance.

So, let’s talk about the ‘Dating Simulator’ part of the game – there are two love interests from the get-go. But as quickly as these are introduced, they are quickly forgotten about and then they pop back into play at a later time. I guess there’s nothing exactly wrong with that? But I found it a little strange.

AUDIO

I’m sorry to say, it doesn’t get any better from here. The music itself is okay, it’s nothing to shout about but it’s pleasant – when it actually plays. The music is so inconsistent, the majority of my playthrough was silent, with the occasional outburst of the soundtrack and as quickly as it starts, it stops again. Silence.

There’s no narration either, no voice acting. Nothing. There’s the rare occasion of the character speaking in an accent (which I didn’t understand at all) but other than that the game’s pretty silent.

VISUALS & PERFORMANCE

Blind Men features still scenes with basic backgrounds. They don’t look bad, they’re just nothing special. Nothing stands out in them. Text in the middle with a character either side is what you will see for 90% of the game. The characters models are, again, just okay. They’re pretty basic – there’s no real personality to the characters and that’s a shame.

I didn’t encounter any performance issues whilst playing docked or handheld, so there is a positive!

VALUE

Blind Men is priced a £4.99 in the UK and $4.99 in the US, so it’s not a high price point at all but I still can’t say it’s worth it. In my experience it has nothing going for it; no captivating story, no amazing graphics or delightful soundtrack. 4.99 isn’t a lot, but there are so many other alternatives to this genre that are a much better option.

Blind Men Review provided by SwitchWatch.co.uk
Developer: Man-Eater Games
Release Date: April 17 2020
Price: £4.99, $4.99, 4.99
Game Size: 182 MB