Erica was first announced as a PlayStation 4 PlayLink game at Paris Games Week 2017. With everything else at Sony’s conference that year, it got taken by the wayside, only to be featured at Geoff Keighley’s “Opening Night Live” at Gamescom 2019. It was my biggest “Oooooh” moment of the two hour event.
In the almost two year interim, Erica underwent a fair amount of changes, as shown in what would end up being the launch trailer for the game, as it released on the PSN store shortly after the Gamescom announcement.
(NOTE: Plenty of people on the Internet disagreed with calling Erica a game on the day. I’ll present to you the definition of ‘game’ from Merriam-Webster. You know, the most well-recognized name in dictionaries out there.)
Also, it’s been a bit since I’ve written a “review.” Here’s a refresher on how I write them.
(Warning: Mild Spoilers for Erica)
The game wastes no time getting into exactly what’s going on; with a sequence featuring a younger Erica and her father. The supernatural element to the game is introduced early; her father telling her of a tale of a priestess and a butterfly mark.
That butterfly mark? It’s on Erica, and it was on her mother as well.
Her father meets a gruesome end, but the murderer seems keen on sparing Erica. When we see her again, she’s a twenty-something, living in a rundown apartment by herself. She’s still having nightmares of the event that took her father, and is soon thrown into another murder-mystery dating back to her childhood.
As the game goes on, we learn more about Erica’s childhood and how it was spent, but it’s made clear that the occult has played a large role in her life. The game’s branching dialogs lead to some pretty interesting moments with events and characters, leading to a potentially fiery conclusion that most certainly made me want to replay it right away.
Make no mistake, Holly Earl as the titular Erica is the star of the show here. From the start, she was able to weave Erica between innocent, distressed, and questioning without missing a beat, no matter the choices I made. I’m glad Flavourworks reworked the game to have her cast as the main character and I hope she gets some love as The Game Awards, the D.I.C.E Awards and the BAFTA awards happen this winter.
There are a few other cast members that give engaging performances, but there are a few who lag behind as well. The girls of Delphi house are compelling characters of their own, but I’d hoped Sergeant Blake would get better as I played more, as he seemed to be one of the few truly interested in Erica’s well-being. However, when he met the fate he met in my first play through, I was hardly disappointed.
Being a member of the PlayLink family, the game does have a phone app which is recommended for play. Otherwise, you can use the touchpad on the Dualshock 4. Even though I’m used to playing other choice based games (like anything from Quantic Dream or Supermassive Games), it still took me a fair bit of time to get use to how the controls functioned. And there were times that I almost felt the screen of my iPhone 8 Plus was too small to do some of the interactions. In the end though, the story and performances kept me from focusing on that all too much.
One last note about the game is the music. Austin Wintory, the man behind the music of great titles such as Journey, The Banner Saga series, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate helms the soundtrack for Erica. The music matches the atmosphere; whether it’s just meant to be ambient to blend into the background, or dark, eerie and ominous as the game goes on, it’s always exactly what the scene calls for. And it’s exactly what I’d expect from a musician with his caliber.
In this day and age of Michael Bay-sized AAA game blockbusters, having a game stealthily drop onto the scene like Erica is a refreshing breath of air in the industry. It’s nice to remember that even the $10 games from small teams can engage your mind and leave a mark on your memory.
On their website, Flavourworks states that one of their goals is “to create the most interactive video-based experiences in history.” With Erica, they’re certainly well on their way.