This article originally ran under a different banner/website in October of 2020 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! LEND ME YOUR EARS!!! As the year crawls on ever slowly, my enthusiasm drains from me like the air being released from a balloon. I return to my homely box after a long day of heralding the end of days and I have zero desire to slog through the mediocre dribble infesting my Steam library. However, I know you will be calling for my head if I choose to review another game that shut down years ago. I, the Video Game Doomsayer, know that the show must go on. So I will take the opportunity to review a well-written bite-size game that I have been putting off. So today, I will be reviewing the walking simulator What Remains of Edith Finch.
I can already see the sneering from the crowd. A walking simulator, you say in disgust. Games where you just walk around with no action or excitement. FOLLY, I CRY. Walking simulators might not be as mechanically intense as the latest open-world action games, but they make up for it with exploration and story. I have noticed the best walking simulators ignite the player’s curiosity with the intriguing world that slowly drip feeds you the story as you press on. Take the Stanley Parable, for example. As you press on through the world, you soon start to see the ordinary office space break down as you continue to follow or defy the direction of the narrator. As someone who is constantly asking for better stories in games, I happily welcome the walking simulator genre.
So what is the story of this walking simulator? You play as Edith Finch, the last remaining family member of the Finch family. With the death of Edith’s mother, she returns to her old childhood home, to collect the remains of her family. As Edith arrives at the towering mismatched house, she recalls how the Finch family is cursed. Every member of her family has died tragically. As she makes her way through the house, Edith recalls the final moments of each member of the Finch family. You would think this would give the game a moody depressing atmosphere, but a lot of the stories have a bittersweet quality to them. From a great-uncle getting the courage to go outside and getting hit by a train to a young boy realizing his dream of flying by jumping off the swing into the ocean, these final moments of the Finch family make them feel like fleshed-out characters. I feel like I know the Finch family better than some protagonists from other games. Looking at you, Blazkowicz twins.
To help keep each story fresh, they all told in a different style. One story will have you bouncing around the house as a cat, while another will take the style of an 80s style cartoon. The shifts in style help solidify the personality of each of the Finch family members. Take Molly Finch, her story comes from the perspective of various animals including the cat jumping from branch to branch in the old family tree. You can feel Molly’s imagination oozing onto your screen as her story feels like a child’s wildest dream. The style shifts along with the top-notch writing work to make the Finch family feel like distant cousins or childhood next-door neighbors that I have known all throughout my life.
So with the tight focus of its melancholy tale, is What Remains of Edith Finch a perfect game? It might be close, but as always, I have my complaints. One complaint specifically: the controls. Now I see the confused look on your face. This is a walking simulator, Doomsayer, the controls consist of pressing W to walk forward and moving the mouse to control the camera. Yes, that is true, but there are motion controls. I am not talking about Xbox Kinect nonsense; I am referring to when the game asks you to mimic motions like turning a crank or lifting a vent. Now, What Remains of Edith Finch is not the first game to do it, but it is still frustrating nonetheless. I know games do this so they can appear immersive, but my blood boils every time a game thinks I am turning a crank in the opposite direction. The motion controls are especially egregious in What Remains of Edith Finch; I feel like I wasted minutes picking up and putting down the same book over and over. These could honestly, be replaced by a simple button prompt and the game would be much better.
However, the controls do not take away from the written story and characters. In a medium so disposable, to have a family so memorable is so refreshing. The annoying motion controls are mere speedbumps along this magnificent journey that I can’t help but recommend. There are few better ways to spend a few hours. If you turn up your nose at walking simulators, please allow What Remains of Edith Finch to change your view. It is truly in a league of its own.
