"What Remains of Edith Finch" Review

Because What Remains of Edith Finch is a short game (and because I'm so woefully behind on my reviews that I've started staring into the abyss and pondering how time is an infinite loop and death comes for all), this will be a relatively short, but hopefully helpful review. Being the pretentious little termite that I am, I tend to enjoy walking simulators more than your average gamer. While most reviewers put games like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture on their worst list or most mediocre list, I had it pretty high up my top games list in its year. In my opinion, if a game can use all of its technical strengths to make me feel something, it's a success even if it can only barely be considered a "game." What Remains of Edith Finch, however, breaks the mold in that it manages to do what I just described while avoiding the shortcomings of many other walking simulators. Let's further dissect this, shall we?

What Remains of Edith Finch tells the story of a woman named, you guessed it, Edith Finch, as she returns to her old family home in search of the lock that the key her mother left her on her deathbed opens. The Finch family is an old Scandinavian family that emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. This family of our heroine's was believed for centuries to be cursed, as just about every member died an early death. However, this never broke the family, and the oldest of the Finches continued to build on their original family home, adding new wings and rooms each time a new Finch was born. The result of generations upon generations of this cycle is the large, intricate house that we spend our time exploring in an experience that can be described as "Wes Anderson does family drama." The house is so filled up with secret passages and colorful, oddly shaped rooms that there's this atmosphere of silliness to the whole ordeal despite the tragic turns the story takes.
Earlier I said that this was the story of Edith Finch, but in reality it's the story of Edith learning about the deaths of her relatives. The story is told through little vignettes (in the form of documents or journals written by the relevant family member) about the deaths of each of the more recent Finches, and the contrast between the Wes Anderson feel of the house and the tragic tone of these vignettes is an excellent representation of the game itself. What Remains of Edith Finch made me feel just about everything on the emotional spectrum, and it managed to do so without feeling schizophrenic or disjointed. One moment, I was laughing at the campy horror-comic that had been printed about the death of 50's child star Barbara Finch, another moment I was cringing and inhaling through my teeth with anxiety as I moved fish to a guillotine during the story of our protagonist's brother, another moment I was holding my face and inhaling deeply to avoid sobbing as I simply swung from a swing to the backdrop of a child reading a paper entitled "How I want to remember my brother." This is due in part to the game's stellar writing. Edith manages to make the emotional transitions necessary to make the tone feel coherent despite going off in so many directions. For instance, after the aforementioned horror-comic telling of Barbara Finch's death, Edith closes it out with: "Of all the stories written about Barbara's death...I was surprised they kept this one." She says this line in a way that brings the tone back to a kind of mysterious, gloomy one without giving the audience whiplash. It's also a brilliant example of the way the game uses subtlety. The events presented in the comic are so ridiculous that anyone would know it wasn't what actually happened to Barbara, but Edith offers no further elaboration, leaving the audience to think on what in the comic might have been true and why the family chose this account above the others. Little bits of subtle storytelling can be found in just about every corner of this game.
Unfortunately, while the game uses subtlety quite well for most of the time, the game's ending relies far too much on it. The ending was a colossal disappointment for me, and while it's true that the journey is what makes this game great, I can't deny how utterly disappointed I was when it ended. It's just too abrupt and withholds just a bit too much information to be considered a good kind of vague ending. I've been discouraged from playing again because of it, and that's truly a shame, because like I mentioned, the true strength of What Remains of Edith Finch is the journey to this ending.

In the introduction I mentioned that What Remains of Edith Finch avoids the pitfalls that other walking simulators fall into, and what I mean by that is this: you aren't likely to take a wrong turn, reach a dead end, and spend forever getting back on track. While the game isn't authoritarian about where you go, it does guide you along the necessary path with text on the environment. You can still go off the beaten path as much as you want, but there's never any question as to where you need to go, and that takes out the main problem I had with Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Dear Esther and just about every other walking simulator I've ever played.

As usual, I'd like to end by talking about the game's technical performance. The graphics adhere to the previously-defined "Wes Anderson does family drama" theme in that things look realistic, but they have kind of a childlike twist to them that makes the whole visual side of the game both unique and endearing. I never noticed any framerate dips, but it's worth noting that there are a number of times when the game has to pause itself to load an area that you've entered and can already see. It isn't a hassle, but it does tend to break the immersion. Lastly, the game features a soundtrack that fits perfectly. There aren't any earth-shattering tracks like you might find in Halo, but the subtle score accents events when necessary and provides ambiance at all other times.

If you're violently opposed to the idea of walking simulators, What Remains of Edith Finch isn't for you, and that was never in doubt, so I doubt you've read all the way to this point. If you're on the fence about the whole walking simulator concept, I'd say that this game is a good place to start, and if you're like me and you appreciate a good walking simulator, then it's a must-own. What Remains of Edith Finch covers themes of loss, personal versus family identity, survivor's guilt, and the various, strange ways that people cope with grief. In many ways, it's a discussion of how these themes have no generation, how these themes are just a part of the human experience. Even if you aren't a pretentious little termite, for its asking price, you get a moving story without the shackles that normally come with the genre, and though it's ending could hardly be a worse fit, I can promise you that you won't regret getting to know the Finch family.

Let us review:
Awful ending - 0.7

So, the final score for What Remains of Edith Finch is...

9.3/10 - Fantastic
Excellent work, Giant Sparrow, excellent work!