Developer: Matías Schmied
Publisher: Whitethorn Digital
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: Nintendo Switch
Evan’s Remains – Review
There are a lot of games released every year, especially during the summer season. Some are better and some are worse, but sometimes there are little gems that are a delight to play when found. Such is the case with Evan’s Remains, a short puzzle platformer about to be released on all platforms.
Story
The premise of Evan’s Remains is apparently simple; a disappeared boy genius suddenly reaches out with a letter. In this letter, he requests Dysis, the game’s protagonist, to go and find him on a remote island.
Soon enough the plot thickens; once in the island, Dysis is guided around by Nikola, an “assistant” of sorts through a communicator. After solving a few of the island’s puzzles, Dysis encounters a mysterious man, completely focused on writing in his notebook. After attempting to talk to him, he runs away, forcing Dysis to chase him.
Once they meet again, Nikola acts as a prompter for Dysis, instructing her on what to say. Luckily enough the man is swayed and introduces himself as Clover Emor. During their conversation Dysis asks some questions about Evan, and decides Clover knows nothing about him, parting ways.
Feeling pretty tired, Dysis decides to rest and teleports to her room with some high-tech gadget. After sleeping for a while, she suddenly wakes up to find the device used to talk to Nikola and a note with a drawing. Assuming it was Evan’s doing, she teleports back to the island. There she encounters Clover once again and decides to stay with him, scared of whatever may be going on.
While the start of the story is somewhat rushed, the rest of it is well-paced and interesting, hooking the player. There is a huge focus on the narration in the game, arguably being half or more of it, with the puzzles taking the backline in importance.
Graphics
The graphics and art in the game are gorgeous. Every single background is detailed to no end, with incredible care. The different zones look completely different and unique from each other while still being familiar thanks to the symbols found in them. This said, some of the character portraits that appear during conversations are somewhat lackluster, straying into the uncanny zone with their proportions.
Sound
Evan’s Remains’ sound design is also really good. The music is well made and varied, with several different tracks included. All the sound effects included in the game are also well designed and quite intelligent. An example of this is how, to compensate for the lack of voice acting, every character has a particular tone for the sounds that play when they speak.
Gameplay
As previously mentioned, Evan’s Remains is a puzzle-platformer, but the gameplay certainly has less importance than both the looks and story of the game. While the puzzles are all entertaining without being excessively difficult, it’s obvious they are there to give the player some gameplay between the story moments.
There are over 20 puzzles of varying difficulties, none of them excessively hard though, they’re accessible to every type of player. The mechanics featured in them are also quite unique, though there is not that many due to the length of the game, which is a shame.
The basic mechanic around which the puzzles revolve is disappearing blocks. Whenever Dysis jumps from a block it will disappear and only come back if the “master block”, which enables or disables the blocks, is activated. Besides this, teleporters, jump pads and block-changers are introduced later on.
As mentioned several times, the game is pretty short, around 3 hours at most and that is probably an exaggeration. Despite the short length, it is a more than enjoyable experience. This said, it should be mentioned there is not much replay value, once beat nor the story nor the puzzles will change.
Conclusion
Evan’s Remains is a really good game with beautiful graphics and a great story. It is also enjoyable for any type of player, as long as they don’t mind simple puzzles. Depending on the price upon release, again due to the length, it would be a more than a solid recommendation.
Evan's Remains - Review,
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