Game Review: Strange Antiquities
tl;dr: Strange Antiquities is better than Strange Horticulture. You do not have to play Strange Horticulture first, but they’re both great games. Pick whichever one suits your fancy, and if you’re not sure which, go with Strange Antiquities.
Strange Antiquities is the sequel to Strange Horticulture in terms of its placement in the chronology of the world of Undermere, but, as the name suggests, this game’s conceit focuses on running an occult antiquities shop rather than an occult horticulturist’s shop. The world of Undermere is transparently set in England, with references to real-world locations such as Oxford. However, unlike our world, the world of Undermere has magic. I wouldn’t call it steampunk. I wouldn’t call it arcane-punk. Think a world where lavender tea puts you to bed for magical reasons, rather than merely psychological conditioning, where rituals do indeed grant supernatural power to practitioners of certain arts, and where magic is studied with the same seriousness as any other science, with similar tools and lenses.
Note that while these games are very cozy, they are still horror games, and these ones are not necessarily appropriate for all audiences, due to some serious content and themes. It’s nothing distasteful, but it is stuff that may not be appropriate for younger children.
The gameplay loop in Strange Antiquities remains essentially unchanged from Strange Horticulture. You are essentially playing through a visual novel with the following core gameplay loop:
Customer visits shop with problem
You supply customer with an item solving their problem
Customer rewards you with more (usually) unidentifed items to use in the future, or details about items, in the form of pages of a reference text
Repeat
You start with some items and reference text pages to start. What I appreciate about this game is that not every item is identifiable in the main game nor is it necessary in the main game. There are red herrings, but most of them are fair. I think there were only four items I thought weren’t ‘ideal’ in terms of fairness.
As far as visual novels go, this has a limited number of choices that matter. The bulk of the gameplay is in paying attention, taking notes, and inventory management.
The biggest differences between Strange Antiquities and Strange Horticulture:
Game length: Strange Antiquities is about 150% the length of Strange Horticulture.* Interesting, Strange Antiquities’ main story is 17 days long, only an in-game day longer than that of Strange Horticulture, which has a main story lasting 16 days.
Numbers of tools to use: There are far more tools to use in Strange Horticulture. More books too.
Number of items to identify: There are 84 artifacts to identify in Strange Antiquities. There are 77 plants to identify in Strange Horticulture. However, because the items have far more flavor text (you can get information about an item’s material composition, appearance (e.g. color,) tactile details (e.g. temperature, rigidity,) smell, sound, and ‘vibe’ essentially) and there are more tools used for identifying items, it felt like a lot more to me.
Improved labeling symbol: more label styles, more label colors, labels can now have custom icon symbols on them
More maps: three vs. one
I’m excited to see what the next game in this series will be like. My guess? I think it’ll be based on The Twinings, the crafting workshop we encountered in Strange Antiquities. Haunted rattan chairs. Cursed wicker baskets…who knows?
*My stream of Strange Horticulture ran for 4 hours, 51 minutes. Let’s call it five hours. My stream of Strange Antiquities ran for 7 hours, 29 minutes, 52 seconds. Let’s call it seven and a half hours. I only played the base storyline, no epilogue or prologue, and did not unlock every ending, because I want to encourage people to buy the full games themselves.
