Gnosia – Spotlight
I’d like to take a step back before diving into my review of Gnosia. Board games were a favourite pastime of mine before I started writing video game reviews. A small red box was pushed in front of us one night during a break between larger games. Described as a social deduction game, “The Resistance” was the name of the video game. This has led me to discover other games in the same genre—including “werewolf,” the name given to the genre by gamers.
A game originally developed for the PSVita in 2019 has now been released in the west in 2021. Just in time to be dubbed a “Among us” clone by the media. Both games have a lot in common, but Gnosia has enough to distinguish it from its counterpart. Then let’s take a look at Gnosia, shall we?
What is Gnosia’s underlying assumption? That honour goes to Gnosia! it’s possible you’ve woken up on a spaceship travelling between planets. As soon as you arrive, you’re part of the team. A member of the shop’s staff has been infected. As a sacrifice to their god “Gnos,” they become “non-human” as a result of the infection. Neither a physical examination nor a blood test can reveal whether or not an individual has been infected. In order to stop the spread of the disease, you must put your fellow human beings into a deep sleep.
Voting is introduced to you early on in the game. Any attempt to identify anyone as “sus” will almost certainly result in a finger being pointed at you. Gnosia differs significantly from its more well-known counterpart in this regard. The storey of the game uses a time loop mechanic to put you in a state similar to that of a Quantum Leap or Groundhog Day. At the conclusion of each loop, you gain experience points that you can use to your advantage in the discussion. You’ll also be able to converse with characters, which will help you identify their tells later on.
There are a growing number of roles to play as you progress through each loop, until all of the mechanics are revealed. Infected crew can be detected by the ship’s engineers and doctors. As long as you’re alive, or if you’ve sent someone to a deep sleep, you can confirm their status. An infected crew member can only be saved by a guardian angel who can protect one crew member each night. It’s possible that you’ll become infected, in which case your objectives will shift. Forcing you to live long enough to kill your friends as a sacrifice to Gnos!
The difficulty of this game is exacerbated by the sheer number of roles each character must play. For those who didn’t leave the ship, the virus couldn’t infect them because they were immune. This group of watchmen can narrow down the pool of potential candidates by vouching for one another. Those who support the Gnosian cause may try to sabotage the election in order to protect the alien species that is attempting to wipe out humankind, but who knows? To be fair, there are a lot of other things to talk about…
The “bug” is the final role that can be played. For those of you outside the loops, this is what it means: “If they are still around at the end, they will be responsible for destroying the universe” The pressure’s off! The issue here is that figuring out who plays what is made even more difficult. The round is further complicated by Gnosians’ ability to tell lies about their role. In order to extend their own existence, bugs can pretend to be the engineer. Adding in the fact that some people don’t look human at all complicates the game even further.
The crew can be talked to or your stats can be upgraded during the breaks between rounds. Charisma, Charm, Intuition, Stealth, Logic, and Performance are all areas where you can improve. While each stat increases your power during the voting rounds, increasing some stats will also unlock commands that you can use. As we’ll see later, these can be useful in getting to the bottom of that shady character.
Social deduction games have a lot in common with this one. Identifying and destroying the genosia is obviously the most important step. However, there is a storey that unfolds in the background during each round. You can usually choose the number of enemies and even your own role at the beginning of each round. In some cases, this can be overturned, but having certain scenarios in place can also unlock storey elements that help to progress your knowledge of the world around you. This is a trial-and-error process, and you have no control over the voting process, so you could remove a character who is required to survive in order to set off the event. This necessitates a lot of grinding and replaying in order to see everything that happens in the storey.
Repetition is the primary source of the gameplay’s problems. It’s hard to resist the temptation to speed through rounds when you hear the same characters say the same things over and over again. It would have been nice to see more dialogue and more reactive dialogue in certain situations, given how much of the game is taken up by voting. Characters’ personalities can really shine outside of the voting process.
Gnosia is designed in the style of a visual novel. Anime characters are combined with a futuristic overlay to give the game a crisp, clinical appearance. Although the artwork is stunning, this video more than justifies its “PEGI 12” rating (don’t pretend you didn’t do the voice). During shower scenes, nudity is implied, if not explicitly displayed. In addition to the numerous sexual innuendos and adult situations and humour, this is not a title suitable for children.
Musically, the game adds a lot to the atmosphere with a wide range of tracks that often feature very simple synth beats combined with flowing ethereal melodies. It can feel a little muzak like at times, but usually this changes up before you think to replace it with something more memorable. Despite this, the music isn’t always bad; in fact, there are moments when it actually enhances the mood and gets the desired reaction.
Some of Gnosia’s best writing can be found here. In particular, in getting the characters’ personalities to match their art styles. There is a diverse cast of characters, each with their own distinct personality, despite the fact that the art sometimes reminds you of typical stereotypes (and indeed, those are present).
The game itself isn’t difficult to learn or play. When you consider that this was originally designed for the PlayStation Vita, it’s not surprising that the hardware can handle the port. In both docked and handheld mode, the up-scaling appears to be flawless, with no noticeable frame-rate drops in either mode. Using either the Joy-Con or the Pro Controller was fine, and the game didn’t have any issues. For those who prefer to work digitally, the file size is less than 0.5 GB, so it won’t take up much space on your hard drive.
The only real technical issue is that there is no multiplayer. Adding another player into the mix would require a massive amount of additional code to cover things like keeping the identities of the players secret or allowing all players to participate in the interactions. So why didn’t they do this? I think it would have made the single-player game “werewolf on the switch” more appealing to a wider audience.
Gnosia is a tonne of fun. I highly recommend it. To put it another way, I think it’s on par with or even better than games like “Among Us.” The game’s quirky cast and lower reliance on a large, often-random player base make it more enjoyable. While the storey and unlockables are rich enough to entice multiple plays, each round drags you deeper into the “just one more game” rabbit hole.
The dialogue was rushed to the point of repetition, which is one of my main gripes. Frustrated mashing often caused me to miss tells. I also didn’t like having to play a round twice because a character was removed and I missed an event. Finally, the lack of support for multi-player gaming reduces the games’ allure a bit. Including some form of multiplayer, whether couch or online, would help maximise the game’s potential to the fullest extent.
All of this may seem inconsequential until you consider the game’s price point. Compared to its more well-known competitor, it is much easier to question whether the shortcomings justify the price premium. There’s no denying that this is a game that will keep you entertained for a long time. Although fans of the genre will be happy to give it their full support, those who aren’t will want to hold off on purchasing it until a discount is offered.
