{"id":1672,"date":"2022-10-10T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2022-10-10T01:26:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T01:26:18","slug":"martha-is-dead-review-autopsy-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/10\/martha-is-dead-review-autopsy-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Martha is Dead Review – Autopsy Report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I did it again.\u00a0 I put all my hope into an upcoming indie horror game all for said game to dash my hopes against the rocks like a ship lost at sea.\u00a0 I am a moth to the flame when it comes to horror titles: drawn to the dread and the fear only to get burned.\u00a0 I come to you, my followers, with scorched skin to bear.\u00a0 Not only are my hands blackened, but my mind is completely bewildered at how much of a mess Martha is Dead<\/em> truly is.\u00a0 From the unsatisfying narrative to the scattershot approach to gameplay, Martha is Dead<\/em> becomes an almost car crash of horror game design.\u00a0 So dawn your surgical mask and scalpel, as we perform an autopsy on yet another flatlined horror title.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Artwork belongs to Riot Games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Our tale begins in Italy in 1944; our heroine, Giulia is the twin daughter of an important Italian General in the Axis army.\u00a0 While working on her photography skills, she discovers her sister, Martha, face down in the lake near her family\u2019s estate.\u00a0 Unable to save her, she takes Martha\u2019s necklace to assume her sister\u2019s identity hoping to this would help her discover her sister\u2019s killer\u2026 somehow.\u00a0 My first reaction was confusion about how impersonating Martha was going to help Giulia solve her sister\u2019s murder, but the concept seemed intriguing enough to pique my curiosity, so I pressed on.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From there you are given a laundry list of tasks that will help you uncover the mystery of your sister\u2019s murder.\u00a0 You are given a camera and free reign over your family\u2019s estate.\u00a0 Initially, I assumed the primary gameplay loop would be taking photos of ghosts in a Fatal Frame<\/em> style.\u00a0 However, the game will only ask you to take a handful of pictures throughout the story.\u00a0 This is part of Martha is Dead<\/em>\u2019s bold strategy to introduce gameplay styles and throw them away hours within the game.\u00a0 A strategy that I as a critic, don\u2019t recommend.\u00a0 You don\u2019t ask a marathon runner to compete in the shot put event; just as a game like Guitar Hero <\/em>doesn\u2019t switch to an RTS mid-campaign.\u00a0 Yes, Martha is Dead<\/em> doesn\u2019t have a dramatic shift in gameplay, but it doesn\u2019t improve to introduce photography gameplay to rarely take advantage of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Early on Martha is Dead <\/em>has dream sequences where Giulia is running down a dark path in a forest.\u00a0 Forks in the path will appear and you must run down the path to form the correct sentence.\u00a0 Martha is Dead uses these sequences three times before tossing them aside like a child bored with its old toy.\u00a0 I was certainly glad to be rid of them as they felt like a cheap way to railroad the audience into understanding Giulia\u2019s feelings, but I found myself chuckling at how quickly these sequences were abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It was more common for the game to ask me to fetch random keys or items throughout the estate like a distraught MMO player, or worse, Martha is Dead<\/em> asked me to engage with a finicky morse code puzzle.\u00a0 A puzzle that will restart each word if the game deems your bleeps and dashes were too long or not long enough.\u00a0 So many cries of anguish were heard due to the game thinking the light tap of my mouse button was too long and I was incorrectly entering a dash.\u00a0 Saying I merely wanted to snap my keyboard in half is an understatement.\u00a0 I wanted to smash the keyboard of whoever designed this puzzle.\u00a0 All in all, I question why Martha Is Dead<\/em> needed to have all these mundane fetch quests or infuriating minigames when the developers could have built the game around taking and developing photos.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My loyal followers, I would normally excuse a mismatch of gameplay and questionable narrative direction, if the game\u2019s atmosphere chilled me to the core.\u00a0 Silent Hill 4 <\/em>is often a game I think about when talking about atmosphere.\u00a0 <\/em>It is a game I grew to love in spite of its quirky faults.\u00a0 Combat in Silent Hill 4 <\/em>was never groundbreaking nor the reason I returned to the game.\u00a0 It was the weird moments that would spark my curiosity and have an uneasy air to it.\u00a0 Why is there a room with a giant Eileen\u2019s head?\u00a0 What\u2019s with the two-headed child monster?\u00a0 Unfortunately, Martha is Dead<\/em> never really left me sitting in my cardboard box pondering the dread I felt from anything I experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now, I am not implying there is no horror within Martha is Dead.\u00a0 <\/em>There is the mandatory jump scares that all indie titles must have.\u00a0 There are some gruesome body horror moments that made me uncomfortable for a second.\u00a0 However, these moments are mere flashes in a pan.\u00a0 Most of your time is spent wandering the brightly lit Italian estate.\u00a0 Yes, you don\u2019t want to bombard the player with continuous jump scares, but I was frequently begging the game to do something to catch me off guard.\u00a0 Again, look at Silent Hill 4, <\/em>the first level is within a well-lit subway.\u00a0 Everything appears normal until you interact with Cynthia and she seems to be in a different world from us.\u00a0 An uncomfortable ease seeps in like a thick fog.\u00a0 That sense of dread never came to me while playing Martha is Dead, <\/em>which for a horror game is a massive red flag.<\/p>\n\n\n

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To make matters worse, it becomes increasingly unclear which quest will progress the story forward.\u00a0 About a couple of hours in, I was given a quest to follow a crow.\u00a0 Eagerly I followed hoping to discover something eerie at the end of the trail.\u00a0 Alas, no desecrated corpse or haunting ghost was waiting to ambush me.\u00a0 Instead, Martha is Dead<\/em> thrust me into a cutscene and then locked me out of the family\u2019s house, cutting me off from specific side quests and being able to develop photos.\u00a0 I was completely baffled by how I was supposed to know following the crow would progress the story in this way.\u00a0 Fortunately, the game did let me back into the house like a disobedient dog who had learned its lesson.\u00a0 However, knowing my punishment didn\u2019t fit the crime of my curiosity, I pressed forward with a sinking feeling of contempt settling in.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My loyal followers, as many of you know, I do my best to avoid spoilers.\u00a0 I firmly believe knowing certain plot points warps the way we see media.\u00a0 The shocking twist of Vader being Luke\u2019s father might not be as impressive after seeing the scene parodied so many times.\u00a0 However, certain stories demand diving deeper to fully grasp the big picture.\u00a0 SO HEED MY WARNING!!!\u00a0 If you do not want spoilers for Martha is Dead<\/em>, or the 2010 thriller Shutter Island<\/em>, I can only tell you to turn back the way you came.<\/p>\n\n\n

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After successfully convincing her family she was Martha, Giulia sets out to find a ghost known as the Lady of the Lake: a spirit from her childhood stories who drowns girls she believes to be prettier than her.\u00a0 Seemed reasonable to suspect an angry spirit is behind her sister\u2019s murder with all the nightmares and Fatal Frame <\/em>camera mechanics.\u00a0 As I wandered around looking for these trinkets to summon the Lady of the Lake, I followed the crow that I mentioned earlier.\u00a0 That cutscene involves Giulia going to Martha\u2019s funeral.\u00a0 On some whim, Giulia decides to play the piano in front of everyone.\u00a0 Her mother panicked because Martha was unable to play the piano because she was deaf.\u00a0 She soon realizes that her daughter at the piano isn\u2019t Martha, but Giulia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overcome with rage, she banishes Giulia from her home, cutting us off from side missions and photo development.\u00a0 I believe this scene was supposed to inspire feelings of guilt and sorrow, but I honestly was more bewildered by the whole thing.\u00a0 If you took your sister\u2019s identity why would you reveal yourself after only a few days?\u00a0 If you believe someone murdered your sister, you have no chance of catching them in the act when they think they murdered the wrong sister.\u00a0 All you have done is play with the heart string of your family members.\u00a0 I don\u2019t blame the mother for throwing you out.\u00a0 One may theorize that Giulia revealed herself because she was consumed by survivor’s guilt and if that was the case, Martha is Dead <\/em>needed to showcase more of this.\u00a0 You had one nightmare of cutting off your sister\u2019s face Giulia, you wouldn\u2019t last an hour in Silent Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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After a fetch quest to gather items to summon the Lady in the Lake, she relieves that she has nothing to do with the death of Martha.\u00a0 Like a snap from Thanos, the phantom presence permanenting the game vanishes.\u00a0 After our encounter with the Lady of the Lake, we never have eerie dreams where you run down a path in the woods.\u00a0 We never caught spirits wandering through the forest.\u00a0 My hope of a Fatal Frame<\/em>-like game shatters like glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the Lady of the Lake does progress the plot by giving Giulia a key that unlocks Martha\u2019s keepsake box.\u00a0 Within the box, is a letter to Giulia outlining Martha was pregnant with her boyfriend\u2019s child.\u00a0 To confirm that Martha\u2019s letter was true, Giulia ventures to her grave.\u00a0 There, in gruesome detail, we help Giulia cut open her sister and pull out the fetus of her dead sister.\u00a0 Personally, I can handle gore in horror games, but this, much like the dream where Giulia cuts off Martha\u2019s face, just feels needless.\u00a0 The tension doesn\u2019t escalate.\u00a0 Chills aren\u2019t racing down my spine.\u00a0 It just feels like watching a child play with the guts of a dead animal on the side of the road.\u00a0 Certainly, something like that could add to the tension in a movie like Pet Cemetry, <\/em>but a movie like that is already dripping in atmosphere that Martha is Dead<\/em> is lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assuming her mother would be furious that Martha is pregnant, Giulia assumes her mother is the one to have killed Martha.\u00a0 She returns to the house, gets her father\u2019s gun, and shoots her mother.\u00a0 She does blackout during the shooting but holding steadfast to her theory, she dismembers up and buries her mother.\u00a0 Upon digging further into her pictures, Giulia realizes she killed her sister.\u00a0 Wrapped in the guilt, she contemplates shooting herself but is interrupted by American soldiers who capture her and her father.\u00a0 They brutally beat the two of them before shooting her father in the head.\u00a0 A young soldier is tasked with finishing off Giulia, but he takes pity on her and shoots the ground instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After breaking free, Giulia goes to her childhood room to play with her puppets one last time.\u00a0 From there Giulia reveals that Martha was never actually real.\u00a0 Giulia developed the spilt personality of Martha after being abused by her mother as a child.\u00a0 The mother frequently beat Giulia with a cane and forced her to eat the family dog.\u00a0 The Martha personality developed in the hope that their mother would love Martha and stop abusing Giulia.\u00a0 With her family gone, Giulia goes to the church in town where she was eventually taken to an asylum; thus ending the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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The final reveal left me feeling bewildered and cheated.\u00a0 Yes, some plot points hint at Giulia and Martha being the same person, but there are so many red herrings that make the ending feel out of left field.\u00a0 Why have the Lady of the Lake?\u00a0 Why have the American army kill her father?\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help but think of Shutter Island<\/em> as I contemplated this ending.\u00a0 When it is revealed that Teddy is a patient on the island and not a detective, your mind begins to piece together all the clues the movie left to form a clear picture.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get the same coherent picture from all the clues Martha is Dead <\/em>tries to leave behind, leaving me dissatisfied with the disconnected ending. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image belongs to Paramount Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So why have I spent some much time dissecting this title that I would charitably say I didn\u2019t enjoy?\u00a0 If it is not obvious, I love horror.\u00a0 Nothing will ever quite compare to hearing your heart beat against your chest as you try to stay perfectly still hoping the monster doesn\u2019t notice you.\u00a0 I want there to be more dark stories that have me questioning my sanity.\u00a0 In order for that to happen, we need more developers walking the knife\u2019s edge of horror game development.\u00a0 I am not tearing down Martha is Dead <\/em>to discourage its developers LKA Games; I am hoping they can look at my grievances and avoid these mistakes on their next attempt.\u00a0 I genuinely believe Martha is Dead <\/em>needed to stick to a couple of core ideas in order to become a spine-tingling horror game.\u00a0 If you wanted to focus on the split personalities, then maybe get rid of the Lady of the Lake and replace it with tense scenes with the mother or haunt her with images of the dog.\u00a0 It certainly is more productive than patting yourself on the back for all these high scores from outlets who can only comment on the game\u2019s visuals, but that\u2019s a discussion for another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the medical examiner, I should probably announce what killed the title.\u00a0 Martha is Dead <\/em>is clearly weighed down by too many ideas and wasn\u2019t given any chance to breathe.\u00a0 Almost as if the weight caused the title to drown in the lake.\u00a0 Hopefully, LKA Games will give their next title a chance to breathe.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image belongs to the music video for Metallica’s One<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did it again.\u00a0 I put all my hope into an upcoming indie horror game all for said game to dash my hopes against the rocks like a ship lost at sea.\u00a0 I am a moth to the flame when it comes to horror titles: drawn to the dread and the fear only to get… Continue reading Martha is Dead Review – Autopsy Report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}