Press Start: July 15th, 2015

Title: Blackwell Convergence
Released: 2009

Story: We return to the present, a short time after The Blackwell Legacy. Rosa seems to have adjusted well to her new-found responsibility as a medium, and she just returned with Joey from saving another lost soul. What turns out to be a rather hectic night for her, catching back up with Nishanthi and making new acquaintances, ends up blending the past and the present together as the re-emergence of a character from the past starts to cause trouble. We see some previously established characters from Blackwell Unbound such as Joseph Mitchell being addressed in topic, as well as introducing Joe Gould. Due to this being based in New York, these characters are actual people from history. Inclusion of these characters lend a bit more of a historical anchor to the games and, at the same time, uses their involvement with the characters in such spirited ways that you can almost believe them.

Graphics: The style of the game has changed yet again. We can see the number one change being Rosangela's model, with the conversation portraits being changed too. The character portraits are slightly animated again, a throwback to the first game at least. While it is a bit disorienting to be playing the same series with so many changes to the classic features, it isn't that drastic to throw players of the series off. If anything, some of the sprites are actually much more animated, such as Joey and the antagonist, but there are still some slip-ups with the sprites shifting from the foreground to the background. Thankfully, there aren't many locations where this happens. Another thing of note is that they changed the notebook system again. One thing that I liked in The Blackwell Legacy was making connections between two different subjects. They changed this with the second game, and retained that change with the third. Sometimes, some of the connections made after discussing topics with people aren't that obvious, so when you go to leave your notebook, you find that there are new topics to directly speak about.

Music: Still slightly memorable, but not memorable enough to warrant recommendation. It does get better, but I had come across several instances where the map screen's music would carry over when I chose places to visit, which ruined the atmosphere I would come to expect from the separate areas.

Overall: The game still felt rather short, like the previous two, but thankfully it did stretch it out some. The locales were rather nice despite their small one-room locations, and the comments that the characters have on several items of interest continue to brighten up the stops we take. I just wish there were more puzzles and cases involving the spiritual duo, as that's what I'm coming to enjoy more and more with these games. Getting closer to the end, though, so this is a bittersweet idea.