"If Found..." Review

Available for: Microsoft Window, MacOS, iOS, Nintendo Switch

Reviewed for: Nintendo Switch

Every year there's a least one indie darling that sweeps me off my feet. Last year it was Lost Ember, for instance, and in 2015 it was, of course, Undertale. This year, however, it seems like all the small-scale successes have been the likes of Hades or Among Us, neither of which I have any intention of picking up for any length of time. Recently though, the nominations for the Game Awards came out, and as I typically do, I went to the "Games for Impact" section. From there I had a look through the nominees, combed through the descriptions, and decided to give If Found the first crack at being the indie title to win me over this year.

How was that for a riveting introduction? This being a small indie visual novel, there really isn't that much to say, so coming up with a way to start the article before delving into the meat is a bit on the tricky side. The same is even more true when the subject is a small indie title that I 100% plan to recommend to you. So, this is going to be a short, not incredibly detailed review. 

If Found takes place in late 1993 Ireland, and it follows a young woman named Kasio. None of the reviews I've seen have specifically mentioned what Kasio's (for lack of a better word)..."deal"...is, despite it being revealed pretty early on and context clues spelling it out earlier than that, but having now played the game, I can see why, and I intend to also not mention it. To bring that up before someone even starts playing the game would be to give them a clear mental image of where the story will probably go and what the themes will probably be, and in the case of If Found, that mental image would be almost entirely wrong. I'll simply say this: If Found, having been nominated for the "Games for Impact" award at this year's Game Awards, is a game that has something to say about some kind of social issue. You'll already know if you can handle a game that covers one of the topics that potentially falls under that umbrella or not, so that's the most I'll say about what likely got this game nominated in the first place. Anywho, the story follows Kasio as she goes through day-to-day life, interacting with both social rejects and acceptable Catholic Irish folks alike, facing increasing degrees of debilitating isolation and...gah, small indie devs don't make spoiler-free reviewing easy. Well, though I have to cut off from Kasio's story at this point, I can say that her story runs parallel with the story of another woman faced with isolation: Cassiopea, an astronaut passing through event horizons to find the source of an anomaly that threatens to destroy the world. Intrigued? Well, you'll have to play to find out more. At the time of writing, I've only completed If Found once, but I imagine that it's like a good poem: you'll likely get a lot more out of it by giving it a second go. But just like a good poem, if you decide to stop after just one round, you'll have plenty to chew on. This is a story in which the low points are depressing not in a "make you cry" kind of way, but in a "make your heart sink" kind of way. This is a story in which the high points just make you feel like hugging yourself and smiling. And furthermore, this isn't a story about heroes and villains, or even good people and bad people (well, except maybe one character, but I imagine a second playthrough might shed some more light). If Found is, quite simply, a story about human beings (I'll accept my award for "Most Pretentious Quote of the Year" now) trying their hardest to understand and communicate with each other. Oftentimes they fail, oftentimes they're too flawed to make the leaps they need to at the right time, but they're always trying, and this is what gives rise to the most upsetting low points as well as the most happy-tear-inducing high points. Yes, I daresay this narrative could've been literal perfection...were it not for the fact that the writing is sometimes...off. It perhaps sounds a little damning to say that the writing in a visual novel isn't always up-to-snuff, but bear with me. Most of the time, the writing is quite good. It's just that when it comes to character failures, it tends to feel...rushed? Out of place? Let me give you an example. In one scene, Kasio has returned home to visit her brother (Fergal) and mother for Christmas. I don't have it down verbatim, but the following gets the point of the exchange across:

Kasio: Is there anything good on TV for Christmas?

Fergal: They're showing that film you were in.

Kasio: What film?

Fergal: E.T.

The writing is better than what I just laid out there because I was just trying to get the essence of the conversation, but you might be wondering what the problem is. Well, up until this point, Fergal's characterization had been pretty much nothing but "unrepentant asshole," and his face next to his speech bubbles is always in a stern scowl. Furthermore, both of these characters are grown adults, not children or even teenagers. So what comes off as a bit of joking sibling bickering is actually a brother taking a literal jab at his sister. In this scene, a grown man implies that his sister is the titular wrinkled Extraterrestrial as a way to seriously try and harm her self esteem. Do you see why this whole thing just feels off? It's by far the worst example, but there are a couple of sequences like this where the writing is off-kilter a little bit. Were it not for that, this story could've been perfect, and I think that's a real shame. 

With that, we move on to Gameplay. This being a visual novel, there isn't much in the way of gameplay, but there is some degree of interaction other than just reading. The narrative switches between pages in Kasio's journal to actual scenes in her life, and in both cases, you have a kind of magic eraser of sorts, and interaction takes the form of erasing what you've read to reveal the rest of the story. In the journal sections, this involves erasing scribbles and the like, in the actual scene segments, this involves erasing up and down the whole screen to gradually unveil the next scene. If that sounds unengaging, it isn't. I found it pretty fascinating to see how the artwork bends and twists and molds with other artwork as I erased certain parts of a scene, and in the game's most potent emotional moments, they either make the revealed artwork stunning enough to make the act of revealing more of it fun or they place the words that will be revealed in such a position that you probably won't reveal them until you've already revealed the art that will go with it. It's the kind of thing that isn't easily described, but I'm doing my best here. Point is, the way you interact with the story can be engaging and it leads to some interesting bits of artistic direction. 

All that's left, then, is the technical section. Most visual novels do pretty well in the tech department since they don't have much in the way of demanding graphics or programming, but I have to say that If Found goes above and beyond the call of duty here. Firstly, the framerate while you're erasing bits of the screen or when the screen is zooming in is always silky smooth, and it just makes all the artistic crap I mentioned already feel all the more soothing. Secondly, the soundtrack put together by composer 2 Mello perfectly emphasizes every story beat, making the atmosphere stick better than it does in most visual novels. Furthermore, it blends the science fiction themes of Cassiopea's story and the introspective beats of Kasio's excellently. One last, disjointed note on the soundtrack: I don't know if it was 2 Mello who composed the whole of the gaelic song that scores the epilogue or if they just got an ensemble together for it, but it was an excellent move one way or another. Then there's the art direction. The use of colors in the actual scenes of Kasio's life is...*sigh*...I'm not an artist, I don't know how to talk about art, so I'll just say it's really pretty. So yeah, technical side is more than just solid, it's more solid than it really needed to be.

In my review of Ghostrunner I brought up how much easier it is to write about games I either hated or loved than it is to write about games I'm lukewarm about. This sentiment does not apply when a game I love lasts approximately 3 hours and is almost entirely story-based. So if this review has been even half as weird and poorly-paced as I think it is, you have my apologies. However, if nothing else, I hope I've piqued your interest enough that you'll give this wonderful indie experience a try.

This being a game as small as it is, I'll be upping my scoring scale to 2 (meaning that taking off 2 points would be the equivalent of taking off 1 point in a regular review, taking off 1 point would be like taking off half a point, etc.), so let us review:

Occasional wonky writing: -1

The final score for If Found... is...

9.0/10 - Exceptional

Great work, DREAMFEEL, great work!