I had no idea what to expect when venturing into Edgar: Bokbok in Boulzac on Xbox One, but after watching the trailer I was certainly intrigued by it. The graphical style and apparent comedy focussed narrative reminded me heavily of the Deathspank games from the PlayStation 3 era, three games I absolutely loved and played multiple times each. I’ve wondered in the past if it is possible for a game to be centred mostly around comedy, and while Deathspank succeeds in this respect, Edgar does not.
The game begins with the titular Edgar’s squash farm being overrun by swarms of Lionflies, and the only way they can be repelled is to acquire a rare element, Razidium, to power his vaporiser. With this most noble of quests he sets off into town with his pet chicken, Precious, to purchase some. No more than ten steps into the town and it is immediately apparent all is not as it seems, and so Edgar must get to the bottom of what is affecting the town and its citizens, and acquire the Razidium that he needs to save his farm.
I am a fan of the art style, but feel more attention could have been afforded to the inhabitants of the titular town of Boulzac. They are all entirely forgettable, and some require you to trigger their dialogue multiple times before they’ll utter anything remotely helpful that progresses the story. Edgar is the closest that the game comes to being amusing, though solely for his perpetually blank expression, seemingly incompetent in responding in any human way to interaction. It was nice to think that when NPC’s launch verbal torrents of banal dialogue at him that I’m not the only one whose eyes are glazing over from boredom.
Even though my first impressions weren’t strong for this title, I still found myself going back to it a couple of times due to my curiosity as to what it would grow into if I allowed the story to progress. However, after two hours of wandering around being subjected to woefully boring chatter and a blatant lack of comedy in this comedy game, I felt I had to pack it in as I could not stand anymore.
For an attractive art style, but nothing else, and the fact the protagonist mirrors my thousand yard stare of indifference at anything that happens, I score Edgar: Bokbok in Boulzac