What Remains Of Edith Finch will probably be the subject of a lot of arguing on game forums. Giant Sparrow, known for the puzzle game The Unfinished Swan, takes on the “walking simulator” subgenre here. And, much like the other entries in that genre, it shares their flaws and virtues, including a frustrating problem with tone.
The game follows 17-year-old Edith, the last of the Finches. Edith’s family that emigrated to America and built a big old ramshackle house. She inherits a mysterious key from her mother, and begins piecing together the deaths of her family members, ranging from the uncles she never knew to the brother she remembers all too well.
Edith Finch wears its influences on its sleeve; the old house by turns cheery and unnerving, packed with mysterious passages, is a riff on Gone Home, while the wandering around and triggering of Edith’s musings in her journal is straight from Dear Esther. It’s an extremely atmospheric game, and to Giant Sparrow’s credit, it’s more interactive than most of its kin. You’ll have to fiddle with stuff, although none of the puzzles are particularly complex. Helping matters is that each story you find is a minigame of some sort, changing the mechanics for a brief time. It doesn’t wear out its welcome, either, as you’ll get through it in two to three hours.
The main problem is the game can’t quite decide if it’s a melancholy fairy tale or a Ghastlycrumb Tinies-esque dark comedy. Suicide, emotional trauma, and mourning are cheek and jowl with what amounts to shaggy dog jokes and absurd deaths. It’s a problem both in the story and in the overarching plot, as we learn Edith isn’t back just to talk to the realtor. The result feels oddly unfocused, especially as the stories use a range of narrative devices.
What Remains Of Edith Finch is a brisk, fun game in many respects, and if you’ve enjoyed games like Gone Home and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, this’ll be worth your $20. But it would have benefited from knowing exactly what story it wants to be.
Verdict: Worth A Chance
This review was written using a PS4 review code provided by the publisher.