Quick Links
- Dirty & Deliberate Retro Graphics
- Accessible Puzzles & Persistent Pixel-Hunting
- The Story Never Sings, Or Gets in the Way
- Screen Rant’s Review Score & Conclusion
It’s strange how gloomy escape rooms seem even more menacingly weird with limited polygons on display. Vertical Reach’s The Tartarus Key, published by Armor Games Studios, goes all-in on the low-fi horror aesthetic, delivering a puzzle-based adventure game which is at turns refreshingly simple and clumsily written. With barely a jump scare or sudden game-over screen to be found in its 5-hour runtime, The Tartarus Key’s straightforward puzzle solving and intentionally queasy PlayStation 1 aesthetic keeps things interesting.
Plucky protagonist Alex Young wakes up in a locked study, unaware of how she arrived there or why a walkie-talkie keeps squawking on the nearby desk. On the other end of the line is stiff-lipped Officer Torres, one of several NPCs trapped throughout The Tartarus Key’s mansion who Alex can rescue (a task with potential for failure, but more on that below) all the while piecing together a sinister kidnapping plot that takes a few fresh turns towards three drastically different endings.
Dirty & Deliberate Retro Graphics
The grungy 3D aesthetic will certainly not resonate with everyone. Textures are crookedly crunched down to be near-unrecognizable when viewed close up, all gaudy colors and jagged edges at every swing of the stiff first-person camera. It’s one of several design choices which could come off as eye poison to some players, but the graphical lends The Tartarus Key a kind of cursed quality which effectively supports its themes.
Despite any building tension in the story, nothing in the game is genuinely timer-locked, and there are no dead ends to stumble into in frustration. Instead, The Tartarus Key occasionally locks Alex in a room until a puzzle sequence is complete, while the majority of encounters can be attempted and returned to at the player’s leisure.
Accessible Puzzles & Persistent Pixel-Hunting
Some of The Tartarus Key‘s areas are locked behind other puzzles or key items, but there’s a crucially smart mechanic at play throughout: every room can only be completed using the items and hints close by, and item inventory never persists between puzzles. This makes gameplay refreshingly clean and focused, dismissing the “rub every item on every item” trope which point-and-click adventures (and their bulging inventories) struggle with at times.
This system also minimizes restless exploration, allowing The Tartarus Key to fully immerse players in the puzzles at hand with minimal distraction. Most don’t offer too many points of interest to click on, with the best ones requiring equal attention to notes, items, and elements of the background. Therefore, not a single puzzle is ever impossible or daunting, so there’s no love lost at the lack of a built-in hint system, though a select few rely too much on pixel-hunting a needle in a muddy-textured haystack.
The Story Never Sings, Or Gets in the Way
Outside the puzzles, The Tartarus Key’s clunky storytelling carries the remainder of the experience, hearkening to its era inspirations like Alone in the Dark or Clock Tower. Frequent dialogue prompts via walkie-talkie appear while rummaging through the house and cinematic scenes are unskippable, an issue which is more keenly felt on a replay. The tone sways drastically, mixing silly, incoherent chatter sometimes reminiscent of formative Resident Evil game quotes with Alex’s heart-on-her-sleeve sympathetic humanity. It’s an uneven narrative which does manage to come alive in the game’s “true” ending, and a functional save/load system helps in trying to rescue every NPC.
The Tartarus Key lobs a few decent non sequiturs which successfully land, like when Alex comments on a vase with the Zelda riff, “not a single rupee hidden inside.” Less successful is the budding relationship between Torres and Alex, who grind their way through incessant conversations about their pasts which only highlight the inconsistent writing quality, wavering between goofy charm and outright cringe.
Or maybe that’s all intentional? The Tartarus Key’s faux-retro window dressing seems interested in divining that poorly translated Resident Evil shtick, but it’s hardly a universal salve to excuse the story’s most blatant weaknesses. One particularly odorous NPC wears a trap right out of the Saw franchise, but there’s little in the way of character development for most of these folks, all of whom collect in the mansion’s living room when rescued but provide only nominal additional dialogue.
Screen Rant’s Review Score & Conclusion
While the puzzle difficulty here won’t send most players to online guides, they’re still fun to tinker with, and opening up more of The Tartarus Key’s mansion soon becomes its own reward. Combat mechanics or other challenge elements may have added more spice to the experience, but the game serves as an accessibly light adventure game which is even more fun played alongside a friend to call out puzzle tips or clown on the script. A great ending sequence rounds out the experience, making The Tartarus Key a worthy throwback that doesn’t waste time.
The Tartarus Key releases on May 31 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
