Blankspace Review – Locked Up Hearts

Visual novels are a genre that isn’t as prolific on PlayStation, especially when compared to other consoles such as the Nintendo Switch or PC, especially with the release of the Steam Deck giving a boost to gaming on the go back in 2022. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t any.

Today, we’ll be taking a look at Blankspace, a visual novel that was originally released back in 2020 for PC, but has now been released just at the beginning of this month on PlayStation via Penguin Pop Games and Ratalaika. Looking at its trailer, it looked rather interesting, so I decided to give it a shot.

Rise and Shine in an Unknown Place

In Blankspace, our story begins with Chris, who suddenly wakes up in a strange room handcuffed to a pipe. He soon meets a girl named Beryl, who also seems to be in the same predicament. Much to his dismay, he doesn’t exactly remember how or what led to him being kidnapped to this mysterious room, and neither does Beryl. If this sounds at all familiar, this narrative is rather similar to the way the Zero Escape series begins.

That is about all who you’ll meet however, as there are practically no other characters in Blankspace other than Chris and Beryl. The game does mention the existence of Chris’s boyfriend, but only in passing, as he is never mentioned by name. Personality-wise, Chris acts as your standard delinquent redhead that just doesn’t seem to care much about his life. As for Beryl, she paints herself as this type of person that clearly knows a lot more to the situation that meets the eye, though in reality, I found it very hard to get a read on her own personality traits.

At first I had thought that Chris was just inherently a bad protagonist, but in my view, the reasons for this may just be because there just isn’t enough time to properly flesh out its plot points. This causes the intended plot twist to not feel as impactful as it tries to be, simply because the game is so short, so you’re not given enough context into each character’s back story. I mean, the fact that you learn that Chris is actually gay comes absolutely out of nowhere.

One of my gripes is how Blankspace does not contain even a smidge of voice acting, which is definitely a bummer. The sound effects it uses also feel extremely generic. As for the soundtrack? It’s decent, but I must admit that I didn’t exactly feel like it stood out in any meaningful manner. That said, I do enjoy the character design, especially with how many expressions both Chris and Beryl have.

Puzzle Time: Check Your Surroundings

Besides being a visual novel, Blankspace leans into the point and click adventure genre, so there are lots of puzzles for you to solve in order to escape this bizzare room. There are hints all around to get an idea on how to solve them. But navigating these rooms is extremely atrocious: Instead of a simple 3D room to navigate, you use a cursor controlled by the left stick and hover over an arrow to select which section of the room you want to go to.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but each part has a different camera angle, so it can feel extremely disorienting at times, especially during a certain puzzle that is required for the true ending, where the game makes you jump from various rooms. Controlling the cursor also feels very cumbersome, making it rather telling that this was designed for touch screen devices and/or mouse controls.

In reality, there really is just one type of puzzle, which is finding a code to input in either a lock or a device. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed any of these puzzles, because there are many times where I felt incredibly frustrated. This is made even worse by the fact that your inventory is ridiculously cluttered at the end. Some items are only used ONCE, but they stay in your inventory anyway. It would’ve been nice if these items would just be removed when they’re no longer needed.

Multiple Endings, Multiple Ways

There are multiple endings to the story of Blankspace. How exactly the game determines which ending is seemingly based on just how much of an asshole Chris is towards Beryl, and his overall mental status, though there isn’t a menu where you can check such things. Still, I can’t say I feel a particularly strong romantic chemistry between the two, as some of the choices feel really weird at times. What do you mean Beryl likes it when Chris basically throws his boot at her?

Each ending of Blankspace is so short, you can easily get through the entire game in a single day, maybe in a single sitting if you’re a fast reader like myself. In fact, the platinum trophy of the PlayStation version of the game only requires you to obtain one of the endings, and a good chunk of achievements from the original PC release have been removed entirely. A rather bizzare choice, considering some of the removed achievements would’ve added at least some playtime for those aiming for 100% completion.

Great as a Visual Novel, Bad as a Puzzle Game

Blankspace is a visual novel that has a decent narrative and very good character design, especially when considering its $10 price point. Though you have to definitely temp your expectations, because the brevity of the story definitely doesn’t allow for the narrative to flesh itself out as well as it should. Its point-and-click elements are definitely lackluster, and I largely preferred the story over its puzzles.

In fact, the escape room portions are definitely the weakest part of the game, and the fact that this port by Penguin Pop Games feels very half-baked, for the lack of a better word, doesn’t do it any favors. I simply do not understand why they chose to remove all of those, but ultimately, the fact still stands: Blankspace is simply mediocre on both fronts–as a visual novel and a puzzle game.