Limerick: Cadence Mansion Review (PC)

I am being chased by a red and very angry spiked ball that’s effortlessly levitating above the grimy floor of this weird mansion. I’m faster as long as I do not run out of stamina, but it’s locked to me, so I head to the panic room, where I am mysteriously safe from any kind of threat. As long as I am in the box my character also regenerates both health and magical energy.

I push the big red button as the battery is running out. Step out, recharge it, and then go exploring again. I need the keycard and I think I have a clear idea of how the spiky ball moves. I stayed in a side corridor where I found a relic before for a while. Then move to a new room, where, helpfully, someone has written a door code in one of the journal pages that are always marked bright green.

My enemy hums nearby, so I hide behind some panels and wait while its red light moves away. Exploring the office gives me the access card I had been looking for and some extra resources. I open my way to a new area and quickly take down another enemy using a combination of psychic power and bullets. Unfortunately, another ambushes me, so it’s back to the save point to redo this whole sequence.

Limerick: Cadence Mansion is developed and published by Jenito Studios, LLC. I played it on Steam on the PC. The title combines action and horror elements, taking players to a weird mansion and a universe in which poetry is important.

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Players start off in the classic position of being both imprisoned and confused about their situation. A hovering drone with a split personality suggests a deeper mystery. A strange corporation is in charge of this Cadence Mansion and there are no friendly faces, other than the drone. Limerick himself is a supernatural entity with seemingly unlimited power but still takes an interest in the player's character and his potential actions.

The game features a lot of written notes, affixed to any and all surfaces. They explore the actions and feelings of other Envoys, kidnapped, tortured, and experimented on by the corporation that controls the mansion. Despite the name and the general theme, the game doesn’t feature a lot of poetry and a lot of the writing uses very familiar tropes.

Limerick: Cadence Mansion mixes first-person exploration and combat with puzzles. The player’s character gets access to guns and psychic powers, all limited in terms of ammo, that can be used to kill the strange creatures that inhabit the levels. They don’t dodge too much but they are fast, and health is limited, even if gamers find the upgrades spread through the various environments.

While exploring, be sure to mentally mark where the Panic rooms are. Their batteries don’t last forever but they are secure, they restore health and mana, and they allow the player’s avatar to avoid any monster, no matter how threatening he might be. Run there when the situation seems dire.

The game also features well-placed save points (they do require materials to activate) that helpfully also feature a health kit. Make sure to inspect every nook and cranny for brightly colored resources. Also, keep an eye out for the alternate pathways that can be opened up using the psychic attack.

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Cadence Mansion also features her fair share of puzzles, designed to fit the general horror atmosphere and the limerick-influenced universe. For players who actually read all the clearly marked diaries scattered on all surfaces, finding solutions won’t be very hard. More of the puzzles should have been built around reading or creating poetry.

Limerick: Cadence Mansion can be a difficult game, especially when the puppet gets involved. It’s designed to appeal to gamers who are ready to feel frustrated at first and then find satisfaction in working toward a solution, either to move past a puzzle or deal with a tough combat sequence. Thankfully, the developers understand that it’s not a good idea to annoy too many players too much so they are offering a choice of difficulty levels to make the game more accessible both when it comes to survival and puzzles.

Limerick has a good mix of combat and puzzles and adds just enough tension and gore to keep horror fans interested. Encounters with the dead-eyed puppet can be thrilling. The experience should have leaned more into how powerful words are and how poetry is touched by the supernatural. But moving through the corridors to reveal more lore details and deal with enemies is mostly fun.

Limerick is a decent to good-looking game that never fully nails the weirdness of the premise in its presentation. The location is called Cadence Mansion. This is Nightsonnet Isle. The Splendor Point Poet's Corporation is in charge. Yet players will move through drab corridors, pick up clearly marked resources, and read a ton of green-edged personal diaries. The title’s look is much too normal for its themes and the visuals rarely evoke terror. The level of weirdness should have been dialed up much higher.

The user interface will also be a little hard to navigate, as will the options menu. Unfortunately, the sound design is also pretty traditional. Voice acting is serviceable. It’s nice that players can hear enemies moving and adapt their approach. But both the effects and the musical cues never manage to accentuate the scary elements or enhance the mystery.

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The Good

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