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What Remains of Edith Finch (PS4)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Wednesday 29 August, 2018  //  I stopped playing this game on: Wednesday 5 September, 2018
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

September 5, 2018 07:15:17 PM
It's an interesting game. It's also a (thankfully) short game that is effective. I plunked it in and was done in a few hours (then mopped up some trophies afterwards for fun).

It's surprisingly linear but it keeps things different/fresh as you play. Probably best described as a linear series of interactive vignettes, each focused on a particular character.

I was surprised that the back of the box described the game as Lovecraftian...I didn't really feel or see that anywhere. It's a game that narrates a series of tragic stories, but strangely didn't feel oppressive, sad, or particularly dark to me. I wouldn't say that the tone is "light", but it seems rather "matter of fact" in a way that I thought was interesting and engaging. In a nutshell you learn about a family whose members have had rough - sometimes really, really, rough things happen to them. I guess I really enjoyed that part of the game - the stories are all tragic and sad on the surface, but they're told and explored in ways that are much more subtle and nuanced than that.

My favorites?

The baby in the tub.
The kid on the swing.
The guy at the fish factory.


But, I guess I really liked most of them - I appreciated the comic book horror story, but that felt less interactive than I would have liked and it took me longer than it should to figure out the camera controls for the picture-taking camera story.

Strangely, I can't really remember the names of the characters and I was generally confused by the lineage and who I was playing and what their relation to the house was.


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria