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What Remains of Edith Finch I had a quiet morning last weekend so I finally got around to playing this game. After finishing it in about two hours and having a couple days to reflect upon it, I think I was disappointed with the overall narrative based upon how many accolades it has received over the past year. This frustrates me because I recognize certain segments of great impact and beauty, such as the entire cannery sequence with Lewis or the inventive storytelling of Barbara's chapter. But I think too many stories feel rushed, sometimes essentially being no more than a two-minute text crawl and brief cinematic before another Finch meets their untimely end and you're on to find the next dead sucker. I feel as if the game is too short for the kind of emotional payoff it is going for. It's a narrative that asks us to celebrate in the appreciation and fragility of life, yet its persistent and laserlike focus on this comically unfortunate family's moments of death undercut what's clearly intended to be this uplifting message, almost to the point of parody. We barely get to know much of anything about these characters, how they lived, what they thought, before their moment of demise. What Remains forgets that in order to develop an emotional connection with its characters, the audience needs room to breathe, to absorb all their desires, idiosyncracies and faults, and see a piece of their own humanity within them. Gone Home's creepy residential setting felt lived-in and believable. In What Remains it feels like an illogical funhouse that stretches the limits of how people could live. I would have enjoyed the game more if they reduced the family member stories by about half and put as much care and attention into the interplay between gameplay and story as they did with the brilliant and affecting Lewis scene. While I don't usually like making direct comparisons, I feel as if Tacoma made better use of setup and payoff to deliver a satisfying emotional conclusion of the noteworthy walky sim games released in 2017. Overall: Recommend, with reservations. exquisite tea fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 18:20
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 00:45 |
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