Review: Someday You'll Return

What we liked!

• Story: The story revolves around Daniel (who you play as) and his daughter Stela. She has a habit of running away, but this time it feels different. Your search leads you deep into the ancient Moravian forest in the Czech Republic. It’s a place Daniel swore he’d never return to. In the forest, he meets peculiar people who help him understand the true meaning of Stela always running away. The first bit of the game, you play as Stela and then you continue as Daniel. I really loved this, since it was a perfect set up for the story and the overall game to start. You learn the story little by little and after the first chapter, you’re in deep. I loved getting to know more about Daniel’s life, and so far I haven’t finished the game yet, but I can’t wait to find out what’s at play!
• Graphics: Your journey takes place in a beautiful forest. Apparently, the scenes are based on Czech Republic, but aren’t all duplicates of the real thing. You will, however, run into landmarks that you could also find if you’d travel to Czech Replubic. That being said, I really enjoyed walking around in this digital world. The forest was beautiful and the details, sounds, and locations were all fantastic.

Somewhere between

• Puzzles: Gathering materials, solving mysteries, crafting items, it all wasn’t that difficult. I feel like the puzzles could’ve been a little more challenging. I figured out things rather quickly, and honestly, I’m usually not someone that figures out things easily in games. I can’t imagine how easy this game is for hardcore ‘puzzle’ gamers.
• Protagonist: Unfortunately, I didn’t like the protagonist in this game, Daniel. It’s not like you have to like who you’re playing as but, in this case, disliking him made the gameplay less fun. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever played a character this unlikeable? Daniel seems like a jerk I’d avoid in real life and I really wish this hadn’t stood in the way of liking this game, but it did.
• Manual saving: It’s simple, there is no manual saving option. The game saves from time to time, and even though it does so often, I would still like a manual saving option. Simple as that.

What we disliked

• Bugs: I didn’t expect to run into any bugs or glitches in this game. Unfortunately, I did. This wasn’t a very fun experience, you know, being in the middle of a horror game and all that. Tension is important here and if the game bails on you, all that built tension is just gone. For example, I had to click various times to open something, but after clicking once, the game started bugging and stopped registering clicks. When encountering these bugs, all I could do was quit the game and start again from the last saving point. I get that this is an indie game but with a price tag of 30 Euros, these types of bugs really shouldn’t be happening.

Unfortunately, Someday You’ll Return didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I enjoyed the overall gameplay and was definitely intrigued by the story. The graphics were truly beautiful, making this a masterpiece to simply look at. However, a deeply unlikeable protagonist, not enough challenge and encountering bugs made me hesitate about this game. I would consider buying it, still, if only the price wasn’t so high.