Experiencing the adventures and stories of those who have passed, the memories of the Finch family live on through journals and books that lay around the interesting home that is build off the shore of a nice beach front. Giant Sparrow and Annapurna Pictures takes you there in What Remains of Edith Finch.
The way that they have you experience the stories that have lived on to provide a brief glimpse into the final moments of each of the family members through their own point of view, majority of the time.
Story
You play as one of the Finch family members, which I am not naming since you don't find out till the end, and revisit the old abandoned home that once belonged to the Finch's, who resided there. As you progress through the rooms, you learn about a new family member from their personality to their final moments.
Gameplay
There are many ways to talk about the gameplay. To start with the main mechanics, you walk around through the house and any ducking or crawling is done automatically as you get close to where you need to advance. It is an easy going walk through basically.
Aside from the main mechanics, every story had its own mini-game, so-to-speak. As you learned of the story of that particular family member, you would need to play the actual part. For instance, flying a kite with free controls to move around as you wish or using one analog stick to control part of the screen during an imaginary adventure while using the other analog stick to maintain progress at the real-life job.
It's a very interesting game that lets you really play through most of the family member moments. I didn't care for the family member scenes where they used a small, not-as-immersive way to tell their story. It made the game shorter than it should of been and lessened the experience a bit, only taking two (2) hours to beat the game.
I streamed the whole playthrough and you can check it out on GameTyrant's YouTube. Here is Part 1 below:
Graphics
Everything in this game looked amazing and I especially enjoyed the seaside view offered as you continued to climb through the rooms in the tower of the Finch house. Each room had its own personality and designs to it, which gave a better reality of each family members existence. Everything was rather aesthetically pleasing and, surprisingly, didn't contain any amount of gore despite the entire game being about the deaths through the family.
Sound
The music that was put behind the visuals in this game was wonderful and really gave a relaxing feeling as you progressed. Each adventure regarding a different family member had music of its own and they even featured the tune from Halloween during one of the stories. Easily enjoyable and appropriately constructed.
Replayability
There isn't much reason to go back through the house, especially since after you complete the game they provide the option for you to go back through any of the stories from the pause menu.
What Could Be Better
As I mentioned before, they could of added a few more memory adventures with a few of the family members. Sometimes there was a simple, not-as-entertaining way that the story was told and would of preferred to have had to dive in and experience each individual story as that family member perceived it.
Conclusion
Great game with an interesting story and an unexpected ending! An short overall experience, but one that I am very glad that I got to go through myself.
