What Remains of Eldritch Finch

There has been a few games that were released in the past years coined as "walking simulators." You might know a few of them: Firewatch, Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Novelist. One of them that stuck out in my mind is What Returns Remains of Elders Eldrich Eldritch Furns... *cough* What Remains of Eldritch Finch. Ok, so I don't remember the title of the game real well. What I do know is that these types of games tend to be heavy with the narration and really short.

Negatives: The game made me motion sick. It suffered the same problems as Talos Principle and The Witness: really low frame-of-view (around 50 when 90 should be minimum), head bobbing, no cursor (which was added), and fps drops. That wasn't much of a problem since I finished the game in under 3 hours. I enjoyed much of the story but they delved into a lot of mature themes. They did their best to present people's deaths in a whimsical and more metaphorical way through the eyes of each person's mind but in the end you are running from one depressing story to the next. There wasn't hardly any room to further learn about the positive stories that hid below the surface.

Positives: The game is filled with attention to detail. You could feel that this house was real and the people were real. The rooms were setup in a way that I could actually relate to family members of my own. The books all around the house were definitely a nice touch. The books related to each character splendidly even though some titles repeated throughout the room. The stories were intricate and very well done through the help of venturing into each character's minds. The narrative and text were brilliant through-and-through.

Overall: I can't recommend it. I feel the game is a bit steep at its retail price of $20. Although the stories told are very well done, I can't get over of how demoralizing the whole experience was. The ending left me unsatisfied... I wanted some sort of accomplishment or better resolution to the denouement. Instead the credits roll with no real hope of knowing what happens afterwards.

 

7-6-2017