"Angels of Death" Review

You are Ray, a woman stricken with amnesia who wakes up in a concrete room with no idea how she got there. Slinking along the corridors, you take a quizzical look at your image in the mirror, then chance upon a room with a computer card lodged inside that you will need to open a door, which appears to be the only way out.

Beyond the door lies a complex web of a story that only draws you in deeper the more layers you manage to peel back.

The question of how to unlock the computer and provide access to the door is the first of many conundrums you'll encounter in "Angels of Death," a story-driven adventure RPG that calls you to navigate menus and juggle items in the vein of "Maniac Mansion." Obtuse challenges have a way of making the linear story seem sprawling and complex. You can breeze right through on intuition or find yourself wandering in the dark until a walkthrough comes to the rescue.

Based on the cult hit manga, the game is broken up into four episodes, which allow the writers to tell the saga in a traditional graphic novel structure. The fact that all four are included in the initial released rather than teased and released sporadically allows you the satisfaction of bingin.

The 16-bit visuals grant the game the sense of a lost classic. You truly get what you put into "Angels of Death" -- a game meant to be obsessed over, analyzed and deconstructed. Probing and dense, it's a game to wrap your psyche around as you plunge into the dark with only your wits and determination to guide you forward.
Publisher provided review code.