"Impostor Factory" Review

Available for: Microsoft Windows, Linux

Reviewed for: Microsoft Windows

If you came to this review hoping for the usual in-depth breakdown I always try to do, you're going to be disappointed. This is definitely going to be the shortest review I've ever written, and it's because that's just how it goes when something this small is this good. So you don't even need to read any further, I'm giving Impostor Factory the heartiest recommendation I can give. But I still have my rule that says only games I wrote a review for are eligible for GOTY, so if you're inclined to see a minuscule amount of further thoughts, feel free to keep going. 

Kan Gao at Freebird Games is perhaps the most consistently good storyteller in the game industry. His first game, To the Moon, was a sweet, tearjerking love story that took the world by storm. When he then announced that a sequel was coming out, Finding Paradise, I didn't think he could pull off anything better than his first title. But as it turned out, Finding Paradise was an even better story that aimed for a deeper discussion about the joy you can find in the life you already have, rather than aiming to do the whole tearjerker thing again. So then, when Gao announced the third installment in the series, our subject for today, Impostor Factory, my thought was "If anyone can pull it off again, he can, but I'm not gonna be too disappointed if he doesn't." As far as I was concerned, it was unreasonable to expect the man to once again put out an even better story than before. I'm going to hold off on saying whether or not this game's story surpasses the last one because the rose-tinted glasses are still very much on, and my opinion could easily be swayed by my proximity to each game (for instance, when I try to pull off the rose-tinted glasses, I think "an argument could be made that maybe this story isn't as overall creative as the last one"), but here's what I can say with upmost certainty: regardless of where the story itself lies, everything else about the game is the best it's ever been. The way the story is told, the overall atmosphere in each key moment, even the humor, all of it is better than ever.

I'm going to start off my brief thoughts on that last point: the humor. As great a storyteller as he is, Gao's sense of humor has never quite meshed with mine. It has been a complaint I've had with every game in this series, but it's one that I've never taken points off for, and for an incredibly simple reason. When I go into a Borderlands game, I expect to laugh, so when Borderlands 3 was the least funny thing I'd experienced in a long time, I took off points for it. When I go into something from Freebird Games, on the other hand, I expect to feel things and wade through some humor that doesn't land along the way. In that regard, Impostor Factory is no exception. A lot of the time, the humor actively detracts from the tension, which is pretty much par for the course. But you'll recall that I said the humor was "better" here. That's because at least a few times, Gao actually managed to get a chuckle out of me. One late-game meme joke in particular was so unexpected and was timed so perfectly that I actually had to throw back my head and laugh out loud. It's the exception, rather than the rule, but I have to give credit where it's due: Gao did a better job with the humor this time. 

The last thing I want to cover is the first point I brought up in the list of things the game does better than its predecessors: the way the story is told. In preparation for this review, I went back to my review of Finding Paradise (and in doing so, realized there's a serious typo in my final score breakdown that makes it look like I was going to take off a full 7 points for one of the negatives...oops!) to remind myself of what I took points off for. I had two major complaints with Finding Paradise: the intense sense of brevity as a result of feeling like a lot of important stuff from Colin's life wasn't explored, and the poor execution of the game's plot twist. When I re-read that first point, a lightbulb went off in my head in regards to why I felt this game's story was so satisfying. As far as I'm aware, Impostor Factory is even shorter than the previous game was, and it skips through far more of its character's life. But the thing is, it exclusively shows us the important stuff. In my review of Finding Paradise, I said that it could've used some more filler, because we got to know Johnny from To the Moon due to the sheer amount of arbitrary memories we cycled through. Now I realize that actually wasn't the problem. The problem was that not enough of the memories in Finding Paradise were actually important. And while that was definitely the case in To the Moon, it didn't have the dual story that Finding Paradise had, so it wasn't a problem. Impostor Factory, on the other hand, cuts out all the fat and only gives the in-between stuff a kind of slideshow treatment. So while the game is probably shorter overall, that brevity isn't a complaint this time because it meant the story was focused, concise, and satisfying. Adding to those adjectives I've just laid out is the general lack of interruptions over the course of the story. Usually as you move through a Freebird Games story, there's a great deal of banter and commentary to go with the plot points. However, that kind of thing is few and far between in this particular game. It happens, but quite infrequently, so the story is allowed to just play out with you as more of an observer, resulting in a more consistent atmosphere. Furthermore...how to explain this without giving anything away?...let's just say that there's one other interruption type in Freebird Games stories that goes alongside their usual 3-act structure, and the 3-act structure this time is one that results in that interruption type not existing...that should be vague enough. But overall, the point I'm trying to make here is that Gao has seemed to place a much greater emphasis on how he tells his story this time around, and the results speak for themselves. My other complaint with Finding Paradise was how Gao handled the game's plot twist. Obviously I can't write as much about that as I did about the consistency of the story, but I'll just say that the plot twist in Imposter Factory (it's not a spoiler to say there is one, we all expect one at this point) is handled perfectly. The result of all of this is a game that juggles the best of both of the previous games' worlds. Imposter Factory is an even sweeter, sometimes more tearjerking love story than To the Moon, and like Finding Paradise, it also has something it wants to say about our time here on Earth, but it says it with more focus, all because of the careful planning that must have gone into development. 

So, folks, Imposter Factory fixed the two issues I had with the previous game, and it handled every aspect that the previous game did well even better. I was a bit more long-winded in this review than I thought I would be when I started, but that should just serve as a testament to how good this game is. I know that details have been scarce, and more likely than not, this review reads as if it was written only for people who are already familiar with the To the Moon series. So I'll say this: if you aren't familiar with this series, I'd tell you to pick up To the Moon, know that it gets better and better as the games go by, and you'll likely know if you want to pick up Imposter Factory. As I can't point to a single negative to complain about, and for the reasons I've already spent this review discussing, there's no need for a breakdown at the end of this, because the final score for Imposter Factory is...

10/10 - Masterpiece

Bravo, Freebird Games, Bravo!