Part 64: Summary - The Blackwell Legacy

It's hard to believe it's been over nine months since I started the LP: Blackwell thread! And over seven months since we finished Deception. Finally, it's almost time to finish this thread off properly, by playing through the final Blackwell game - Blackwell Epiphany. But not quite yet...

Before I get started on that, I want to just take a few updates to look at the "story so far", so to speak. I'm doing this for three reasons. First of all, it's been seven months since this thread was active and I want to make sure that those of you who were reading this thread last year remember the primary plot threads, since Epiphany does a fantastic job of picking up on almost all of them. Secondly, I'm hopeful that some new readers will be interested in this LP, but might not want to marathon the first four games to catch up. And thirdly, I'm really keen to have as much discussion and comments as possible as I play through Epiphany, so I'm hopeful that by putting a four day buffer before properly starting the LP, those of you who are interested will be well and truly ready to go!

One last thing before I get started here - those of you who read this thread when it was active last year might remember that I linked to youtube videos containing the relevant soundtrack pieces. Unfortunately, in the time since then, Youtube has seen fit to remove all of the videos, and certainly not at the request of creator Dave Gilbert. I have therefore gone through and replaced all of the old links with Tindeck links. Hopefully they'll stay up! I'll put a smattering of music links throughout these retrospectives, and then it will be business as usual when the Epiphany LP begins.

With all of that out of the way, let's go back and revisit The Blackwell Legacy!

Main Menu



The first game in the, um, pentalogy was The Blackwell Legacy, the game upon whose commercial success creator Dave Gilbert placed the fate of his fledgling Wadjet Eye Games company. Although the sales figures didn't go through the roof, they were sufficient to allow Gilbert to begin work on the second and third games in the series and eventually build Wadjet Eye Games into a self-sufficient game publishing and development company.



We were introduced very early to one of the series' joint protagonists, Rosangela Blackwell, a socially stunted shut-in journalist/book reviewer whose aunt, Lauren, had just passed away. In an ignominious introduction, Rosa is refused entry to her own apartment block because even her fellow residents don't know who she is.

Washington Square Park



Initial puzzles literally involved getting Rosa to trick people into initiate conversation with her, since she was too awkward and shy to interrupt them.



Fortunately, Rosa's neighbour Nishanthi was a very decent person, and she, along with her dog Moti, helped Rosa to enter her apartment, despite her constant stress-induced migraines.

Bellevue Hospital



After relaxing a while, Rosa visited Lauren's former doctor, the subtle-as-a-brick psychologist Dr Quentin, who informed Rosa that her auntie Lauren and grandmother both suffered from some hideously painful form of lifelong, coma-inducing dementia, and that now Rosa was likely to be affected by the disorder as well! Hooray!



Quentin also offered the first mention of Joey, who would later be revealed as the game's other co-protagonist.



Just to help fuel Rosa's nightmares, Quentin left her with a dossier of letters detailing her grandmother's and aunt's slow decent into frenzied madness.

NYU Theme



Before she had time to deal with this comically terrible news, Rosa was immediately asked to investigate and write a news article about the suicide of a JoAnn Sherman at a local university campus.



At the end of the day, the stress finally overcame her and she suffered her worse migraines yet...



...until the swirling from of a ghost - Joey Mallone - was revealed to her.



After taking a while to get over the horror of the situation, Rosa sulkily listened while Joey explained that he is a spirit guide, bound first to her grandmother, then to Lauren who he was clearly infatuated with, and now Rosa.

Washington Square Night



Rather than actually explain what he was doing there, however, Joey instead whisked Rosa away to the local dog park, where a ghost was loitering.



After Joey was unable to get any sense out of the ghost...

Inside Nodespace



...he finally took the time to explain his link with Rosa. It turned out that, through Joey's magic tie, she was able to access the portal to the next world, which is apparently quite literally inside of her head now, explaining the headaches. She learned that their job is to help lost spirits move on through the white light, with the ghost at the park at the top of their list!



Unfortunately, lost spirits tend to be disoriented and often deny plain reality even when it is staring them in the face, meaning that Joey and Rosa usually had to learn enough about them to show them something or say something of emotional significance to the ghost in order to snap them out of it. This went on to form the primary puzzle mechanic of the series.



Joey was promptly revealed to have almost no powers whatsoever, although incorporeality obviously made him very handy when spying was required.

Hospital Clocks



He was also promptly revealed to be a bit of a dick, albeit an entertaining dick



Despite Rosa's terribly dorky attempts at subterfuge, the pair managed to learn about the ghost at the park and her two closest friends, one of which was the girl who committed suicide.



It turned out the three girls were being haunted by an insane spirit known as The Deacon who wouldn't stop screaming at them. Two of the girls committed suicide to escape him, while the third attempted suicide but was unsuccessful.



After Rosa managed to awkwardly sweettalk the security guard at Bellevue hospital...



...our heroes found the one remaining friend, Susan Lee, and discovered that she was still being visited by The Deacon at night. They also learned that Alli Montego, the name of the ghost at the dog park, was obsessed with dogs.

Nishanthi's Theme



Rosa then made the criminally insane logical leap and decided to drug Nishanthi's dog with a diuretic to force it to urinate so she could hve an excuse to bring the dog to the park.



With the dog present, Joey and Rosa were able to get Alli to calm down long enough to recognise her own death.

Alli Is Saved



In what later prove to be a common occurrence, the confused and depressed ghost of Alli found herself quite happy and ready to move on once she was presented with the white light, and Rosa helped her first spirit on its way.



Only The Deacon remained to be taken care of, but in the mean time Joey and Rosa learned a bit more about one another. In particular, Joey told Rosa that that Lauren went insane because she made a decision to stop saving ghosts.



Having gained something of a spine over the course of the game, Rosa breaks into Bellevue to confront The Deacon as he visits Susan.

The Deacon's Theme



The Deacon was then revealed not to be malicious, but simply scared out of his mind, convinced that he was destined for Hell. He was visiting the girls and pleading incessently for their help after they summoned him with a Ouija board.



The game had multiple endings depending on a couple of choices, including one here. Rosa could either convince The Deacon that he needed to move on to stop hurting people, or Joey could just belt the crap out of him until he gave in and agreed to move on.



Unfortunately, the power of The Deacon's belief in his doomed nature was so strong that he somehow projected his fears into real form, and the Devil came to claim The Deacon's soul. Or maybe it was only in his mind, it's not really clear at this point.

Going Insane



Although it is possible for The Deacon to be "claimed" (or believe he was claimed, or something?)...



...the proper ending is for Rosa to help redeem The Deacon, primarily through the use of her handy clues list that she uses in every game.



By destroying The Deacon's flask, the supposed source of his sins, he was free to move on.



And that was all she wrote for ghost #2 on Rosa's saved list.

Ending Credits Theme



Legacy finished with a conversation between Rosa and Joey, where Joey revealed that Lauren chose to stop saving ghosts because she had taken custody of Rosa, after Rosa's parents had died in a car accident. In the final scene, we saw that Rosa, despite being less than thrilled with this unexpected twist in her life, had accepted it. Although the fear of ending up like her aunt did when she stopped saving ghosts was no doubt a contributing factor, it was also apparent even early one that Rosa found saving tormented souls rewarding on some base level.

Storm - The Rain Came Tumbling Down Mix

As a game, Legacy was flawed in many ways. The musical score was mediocre and once you get used to the notebook clues mechanic, the puzzles were all either simple, or frustratingly illogical. The game was extremely short, and most gamers could easily finish it in a single sitting. The pixel art was quite charming, though you could argue that it was a little hit and miss in places. What was for certain, however, is that Rosa and Joey were very rich, well-written characters that you felt an immediate connection with. The setting was interesting and felt like part of a much larger whole, which is no coincidence since Gilbert had the entire series' overarching story and cast of characters planned out well in advance.


I'm really keen to get as many comments and thoughts in here as possible, so please, feel free to talk about your favourite (or least favourite) parts of Legacy again and reminisce about it. Or feel free to post anything else you like, as long as you all remember that we are still in no-spoilers mode for anything from Epiphany. Tomorrow I'll take a look at Blackwell Unbound, and by the end of the weekend we'll have finished these retrospectives and be ready to tackle Epiphany! I personally can't wait