Centum Review
Centum is a confounding and ambitious narrative journey mired by tedious gameplay and writing.
Centum. Credit: Hack the Publisher / Serenity Forge
Games where your choices genuinely matter are rare. Often, players only have the illusion of agency, and few actions lead to real consequences. Centum, a new adventure game from Hack the Publisher and Serenity Forge, offers significant variation in its winding narrative based on what you choose to do. Unfortunately, the outcomes of choices are obscured behind esoteric, often inscrutable dialogue choices. The game’s overwritten script and simplistic gameplay had my eyes glazing over. While story has thematic depth, I found myself increasingly uninterested in peeling away its layers to understand it.
On the surface, Centum is a story about an AI that has gone out of control. The game is made up of a series of scenarios where the player is trapped, and reality is in flux based on the whims of an unreliable narrator—the player himself—who shapes the behavior of the AI. It’s meant for the player to question perception and belief. As a concept, this is very clever.
Centum. Credit: Hack the Publisher / Serenity Forge
The problem is that all of this is obfuscated by excessively cryptic questions and dialogue. A choice becomes meaningless when I don’t understand what choice I’m making, or even that I’m making one at all. I shouldn’t feel like I’m navigating blindly. To make matters worse, I found myself not caring about any of the characters, including the one I was playing.
The game functions like a typical point-and-click adventure, albeit stripped down, blended with a visual novel. Clicking on objects presents you with a list of choices of what to do. You have an inventory, but the items in it aren’t described and aren’t interactive. You will use them automatically if you encounter the opportunity or they come up in a dialogue choice; sometimes, they’ll remain unused. The number of environments is limited, and all are made up of a single screen with minimal interactive objects. The rest—most—of the time, you make choices from dialogue trees in lengthy conversations.
Occasionally, you’ll have to play brief arcade-style minigames. At one point, there’s a short dungeon crawler segment. None of these elements add much to the story. I found them unengaging. The dungeon section was, frankly, boring, a featureless maze that felt pointless.
The best aspect of Centum is its graphics. The whole game is rendered in stunning pixel art, with beautifully designed surreal environments and grotesque creatures. I love the look of the game’s dreamlike (or nightmarish) settings; I just wish there was more to do in them.
Centum. Credit: Hack the Publisher / Serenity Forge
Centum had a lot of promise, but I don’t think its execution allowed it to achieve its lofty goals. The clunky and overly cryptic writing often tested my patience, and the barebones gameplay didn’t help maintain my interest. Conceptually, this game should have been a home run for me. Instead, it falls flat.
Centum is available now on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox One / Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
Overall Score: 4/10
Played on: PS5
