I finished Wanderstop (Ivy Road) at roughly 16 hours, and I want to do my official review of it while it’s still fresh in my mind. In the past post, I was talking at length about my frustrations with the game, and I know it sounds like I hated it. I did not hate it. In fact, there were aspects of it I really liked. It’s just frustrating because the gameplay itself lets it down (in my opinion, of course), and I felt it could have been streamlined. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that there was a whole chapter (as I defined it, the time between each clearing) that just was not necessary. And coming on the heels of the big reveal, it felt as if it were added to deliberately make the game longer.
In playing Love, Ghostie (Jambeh Games), I really appreciated that one playthrough was three hours. It didn’t overstay its welcome, and if I hadn’t felt compelled to get the plat, I would have been completely satisfied with one playthrough. If this game had been a tight eight-hour experience, it would have sat so much better with me. I know the theme is burnout and learning how to lean into chilling the fuck out, but I don’t think the devs deliberately included a wasted chapter specifically to enhance the theme. I mean, I think it’s there to underscore that not everything has a reason, but I still think it’s poorly implemented.
We need to talk about the the hype surrounding the themes/story/plot. Look. I’m not going to hate on a game that tackles big issues. I would rather a game try to say something meaningful and fail than to not try at all. And I’m pretty sure that at least half the issue is that I think about things in a much different way than most people. This game, which people found so deep, was very much Pysch 101 for me. Which is fine! If I had known that going in, I would have lowered my expectations accordingly.
Side note: I think this is one of the problems for me in general. The more something is hyped, the better the chance is that it’s going to fall flat for me. It’s the same with movies like Brokeback Mountain. I went into it with my hype sky-high because of how everyone was raving about it. I walked out of it thinking it was pretty good (the acting was solid), but it was so basic and riddled with issues. Including the fact that there was way more straight sex than gay sex, which was indicative of one of the biggest issues with the movie. (Which I’m not going to get into because it’s not the point of this post.)
Here’s a big issue with this game. Because of what I know about the developer’s first game (snarky, a meta-commentary on society and the harm of capitalism–and more, very self-aware, etc.), I can’t help but look through that lens when I think about this game.
On the surface, it seems like it wants to be a complex, complicated look on ambition, Western culture, and how detrimental the mentality of ‘keep going past the point of exhaustion’ is to everybody living in said society.
And yet.
I could not get past the feeling that there was a hint of smirking mixed in with all that. What I mean is that I don’t feel like the messaging is completely in earnest. I get a hint a tongue planted firmly in a cheek. One of the things in The Stanley Parable was that there was a smug, supercilious narrator who really annoyed the fuck out of me. He’s supposed to because he’s constantly negging the player and talking down to them. There is no such character in this game, though Nana has a similar vibe–except she’s not hiding her snideness behind faux concern or anything like that–but she’s much more straightforward and refreshing.
I also couldn’t get over the fact that it’s a bit of a hot mess storywise. The glimpses you get of Alta (the main character) and her past are intriguing, but not enough to pull me in. It felt like the hints were very hodge-podge and a bit of throwing in the kitchen sink. It also felt like the idea of a fighter/warrior who is forced to be a worker in a tea shop was focused on too much. Like the dev was inordinately proud of themselves for coming up with the idea and didn’t really think about the other pieces to the story.
I was afraid that they were going to fall back on the tired old trope that the person with mental illness does a horrible thing. Which, yes, they skirted dangerously close to, but ended up avoiding it–just. And the interesting things about Alta’s past are never really delved into. Or if they are, I missed it. The only time you learn anything about her past is when you have her drink a cup of tea. I probably missed a few, but the messages were pretty constant. She hated her parents, but didn’t ever articulate why–not really.
Everything felt backwards, again, as if they wanted her to be in conflict with her parents and worked backwards from that point to make it so. Every time Alta revealed something about her past, I just thought, “But why? Why did you feel that way?” And there was never any reason for it. She just hated herself and felt an intense passion to fight because…reasons.
There was enough of a story to be tantalizing, but not enough to really scratch the itch. And, yes, I know the whole point is to deal with burnout and to live with uncertainty. But that’s just lazy scriptwriting, honestly. You’re supposed to care about Alta just because. You’re supposed to be drawn to all the characters just because. And you’re supposed to come to certain conclusions about Western civilizations. That part isn’t cryptic at all–they are painfully obvious about their message.
In the end, it’s an unsatisfying feeling. Again, putting aside the gameplay, I really liked many of the elements of the game. I really liked most of the characters; I adored the visuals; the music was appropriately whimsy; and the amount of chores was light, which was what I wanted in the game. And yet, putting all that together, it just did not gel for me. I think it’s worth playing, and if it were half the runtime, I would give it an enthusiastic thumbs up (because I know my issues with the gameplay are just that–my issues.
I would say that the themes are darkish, but not nearly as dark as people said it was. Not even close. Again, maybe that’s just me being a weirdo, but I don’t get why people were so shook/moved by this game. Maybe it’s the dearth of truly emotional games in general, but I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed by how shallow it felt to me.
I had several of the same issues with this game that I did with Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (Galla), and I am hoping this isn’t something that I’l encounter with indie games in the future.