The Gallery Review

The Gallery is a narrative experience where players will enjoy two different stories set in two different time periods: 1981 and 2021. Both stories see an art curator being held hostage by a portraitist who threatens to detonate a bomb unless their demands are met. Both stories feature similar traits and both protagonists are called Morgan and the antagonist Dorian. And obviously, the time period will offer different perspectives and interpretations of certain things.

The Gallery is another addition to the FMV genre: Full Motion Video. Basically, players watch an interactive move where they need to make decisions during specific times in the game and each decision will impact the story; positively or negatively. One interesting note is the game features two different ways of playing: Timed Choices and Paused Choices. The former will result in a more pressured, immersive experience whereas the latter is an ideal to enjoy the game with a significant other, friend(s) or family members.

The game features a whopping 150 decisions to make and 18 endings across both stories; that’s definitely one of the best features of FMV experience: replay value. You can replay the game over and over again by choosing different answers from previous playthroughs and players will be treated to different story directions; small or big. Each decision will impact your relationship with certain characters and thus encouraging players to see how different things could be.

One thing I found a bit frustrating and useless a bit is about a handful of decisions will feel useless. So, without spoiling anything, during the story set in 1981, you’re faced to decide whether or not you want to cooperate with the perpetrator. I chose No, yet the yet-to-be perpetrator insisted a bit and it ended up as if I said Yes. So, what was the point of giving players a choice here? They’ve also delegated the pause button to the B button. Not really intuitive.

Given that The Gallery is an FMV, not much to report about visual issues, aside from the laughable special effects. There are a few of them throughout the stories, they look really amateurish. The Angry Video Game Nerd does better special effects in his video reviews. For some reason, I’m not an editor expert, but the editing here is also choppy, whether you make a decision or not, which can throw you off a bit. As far as the performance of the actors, it’s actually pretty solid. The guy playing the antagonist during the 1981 story is perfect for his role; I absolutely hated him. Other characters do a great job, but some secondary characters look, and sound disinterested.

The Gallery is definitely one of the most gripping FMV I’ve had the chance to experience in the last year or so. Also having two different stories set in the same place, but at different times with different protagonists and antagonists is a welcome bonus given that most game focus on a single story with a single crew of characters. While the game suffers from some choppy editing, hilariously bad special effects, and some phoned-in performance, the story and the direction it can take thanks to its 150 choices make for multiple thrilling replay experiences.