El Virulé, segunda parte: Padre

Last year, when I played El Virulé (part one), I had a lot of trouble understanding it. It was written in what I would consider advanced Spanish, with very rich descriptions and realistic dialogue, about a guy with an ill-looking eye who sang for money but concealed more.

I rated it lower, but it ended up winning the Outstanding Spanish game award in the IFDB awards. So I reconsidered it.

I approached this sequel with new eyes. It has a lot of neat features, like a food bar you slowly fill up, but the real draw here is the relationship between the child protagonist and his father. Every aspect of the game shows how this child (the past version of the first game's protagonist) is influenced by his father's choices. Left alone, locked in the house, forced to feed himself, getting threatened, handling dangerous items...

I really liked this game. It's not too long, and while I had to think hard at times, most actions were natural and most commands made sense for me as a foreigner.

I especially liked the ending scene, and found it powerful. I didn't get to see the full ending poem because I was hitting enter too fast, but I liked this overall.