Well, I played Martha is Dead, and I have to say despite it being pulled from the PlayStation Store, the game is fairly decent. I wouldn’t say mediocre but, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s an amazing game. But, if anything it’s a decent game.
In Martha is Dead you’re playing as Martha’s twin sister Guilia whose lives with your parents and your twin sister. Out in a rural Tuscany village due to the ongoing war between the United Kingdom, and Germany, you know, World War II.
Your father is an active General in Hitler’s Army. He’s helping maintain the Italian front of World War II, and it’s during this time that your sister Martha is murdered. During all the commotion, however, you take your sister’s necklace and put it on, and your family assumes you’re your sister Martha.
Now, as the game progresses you have to find the truth behind the lies and the secrets that your family is hiding to find out who killed your twin-sister Martha.
In terms of gameplay, it’s primarily a story-driven experience touching on things like psychosis; and mental health. Martha is Dead; despite its claims of a horror game, it’s anything but, as the game feels more like a psychological thriller instead.
There are times during the game when you have a choice to decide how the story could go, the choices you make during those moments never truly impact the ending of the game, and exist solely to help make you feel better.
Primarily because not only is your father a Nazi General, but also by extension your mother, and sister were Nazis also.
The story-driven experience from Martha is Dead comes from the gameplay. When it has you walking around, and using your camera to take photos of things that would become important to the story.
It’s in these photos that, once developed that help gives you clues as to what’s happening and to help you find the secrets that lie behind the game’s surface.
Martha is Dead has a lot of secrets behind the game’s surface, and if you’re clever you can put the clues together to find out what happened before the big reveal at the very end. Normally, at this point, I’d say exactly what the plot is.
But considering I beat the game in under six hours, I don’t want to ruin the plot as it’s a very short game.
But I’ll give you a hint I’ve already ruined the entire story in this review if you’re clever, you’ll figure it out.
Despite; the PlayStation store pulling Martha is Dead for changes made just before launch for gratuitous scenes. I truthfully did not find them gratuitous. Although: to be fair here, I did grow up in the nineties and saw humans decapitated from 4chan posts and people jumping from the Twin Towers to their deaths. So, I’m way more desensitized to violence and gore than most people probably should be.
There are scenes where you strip your dead sister’s body before cutting into her abdomen just to pull out her unborn fetus, and there is also a scene in which you dismember her face then wear it like a mask! Not to mention the scene where you crawl out of her abdomen in true gory fashion, as a fetus.
Martha is Dead is filled with multitudes of gory moments like this, and only near the end do you truly find out why this is happening or what is happening.
My biggest issue with Martha is Dead was that the game has optimization issues, and I feel it could have been; delayed a bit to rectify these issues. There is also a part of the optional story; as I discussed earlier, that doesn’t affect the game’s ending.
But, it does present a side-quest that is extraordinarily difficult as you have to read and understood Morse code. It even tries to teach you Morse code, but to no avail as so many people got stuck on this part including myself. I ended up having to Google the solution, and afterward, I was helping other streamers who were stuck at that part as well.
In conclusion, I did enjoy Martha is Dead and I would recommend it if you enjoy long, drawn-out, very dark stories that focus on mental health. Like, Senua’s Sacrifice just to name one. The game has a very interesting premise and I found it intriguing if not enjoyable.
Now, my hot take is I just didn’t like playing as a Nazi, I can handle all the grotesque, gory, and degrading stuff you throw at me. But, making me play as a Nazi is where I draw the line as the game has no real reason for making you a Nazi even in its story.
If there is nothing of value to be added from being a Nazi in the game’s narrative, then why was it included at all?
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!