As Dusk Falls Review
At first glance, Two Rock, Arizona is merely a backwater town occupied by little more than tumbleweed and a few rows of houses. But very little is as it first appears, and all it takes to reveal As Dusk Falls’ many layers of storytelling depth is one small, decades-spanning tragedy. And it’s all about the story, since this is a choose-your-own-adventure-style graphic novel that cleverly pulls ideas from games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead series and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Each member of this voice-acting cast of unique and interesting characters has their own, often conflicting emotional stakes that accelerate the story in seemingly hundreds of logical and intelligently connected directions. Through the powerful and often far-reaching consequences of your own actions, this small town is gradually unveiled as a powder keg full of secrets, vices, and familial bonds that run far deeper than any outsider is initially led to expect.
This story begins with a heist carried out by a trio of brothers who, while searching for a place to lay low, collide with another family at the auspicious Desert Dream Motel. You initially alternate between the soft-spoken youngest brother, Jay, and Vince, a married father who can either care more about his troubled professional history or his family – depending on how you choose to play him. The voice acting is several steps above competent, featuring familiar names like Deus Ex’s Elias Toufexis and Returnal’s Jane Perry, just to name a few, and each character is played with believable conviction. For a game with this much melodrama, very little of it is played awkwardly, and that’s a huge positive.
The orange-hued art style certainly harkens back to shows like Breaking Bad, and the painterly
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