3/5 ★ – SwitchIndieFix's review of Evan's Remains.

Evan's Remains was announced and then released during the recent Guerrilla Collective Showcase. I'd never heard or seen anything about the game before, though its gorgeous art style and cheap price convinced me to buy it. I actually streamed the entirety of the game on Twitch and after finishing it, had a lot of thoughts about the game's story. So without further adieu, here is my Evan's Remains Switch review. Uh Oh. A Puzzle-Platformer Yes, Evan's Remains (ER) is a puzzle-platfromer, two genres that are typically not my favourite. Though this is the case, the fact that the game lets you skip puzzles if they're too hard, and having the safety blanket of chat helping whilst I played, gave me courage to try the game out. All in all, it was not that bad. The game itself is a 2D side scroller therefore, the puzzles are also based on 2D platforming. Every puzzle usually has switches, teleporters or a jump pad that you need to jump on to work out the puzzles. Your aim for each puzzle is to get from the bottom left hand side of the screen, to the exit at the top right hand side of the screen. Every time you jump off a platform that isn't a switch or a teleporter, the platform will disappear. Therefore, the premise of most of the puzzles is to time platforms disappearing with when you press a switch. Then, there should be a clear line to the exit that you'll have to jump your way through. No Difficulty Curve Overall, I really, really enjoyed the puzzles and platforming in the game. The game clearly tells you that there is no curve to the difficulty of the puzzles. This means you might all of a sudden have a really tricky puzzle to do after previously having two or three simple ones. It may sound weird, but I think it did wonders for the pacing of the game. There was never a difficult puzzle after a difficult puzzle, so it always felt like I was making progress. Sure, I might spend ten minutes on a hard puzzle but then after conquering it, I'd knock out the next three puzzles in ten minutes. I feel like in most puzzle games you get bogged down in hard puzzles. This is the reason why I'm not a big puzzle game fan. However with ER, hard puzzles are sprinkled in without warning and usually teach you something, so the next few puzzles feel much easier. How Hard is Hard? The hardest puzzles in ER always made me scratch my head and ask chat for their ideas. Nevertheless, after looking at them and trying different approaches, I would always solve them on my own. I never once had to skip a puzzle because I eventually worked it out. Plus, I was worried by skipping a puzzle it would effect the story. I think this is a great compliment to the developers, Whitethorn Games, as I was committed to doing the puzzles because I knew I could do them if I tried hard enough. If you are a hard core puzzle game fan, then maybe you'd find the puzzles in the game too simple. However, for me they were like a warm bowl of Baby Bear's porridge; juuuust right. The Island The game takes place on a seemingly deserted island. You play as Dysis, an employee of Up-Bring, which is a huge and slightly shady tech corporation. One of Up-Bring's wiz kid engineers Evan has gone missing and is reportedly hiding on this island. What is strange is that Evan let Up-Bring know where he is, and randomly asked for you to be the person who was sent to find him. Dysis arrives on the island and finds that it is not as deserted as Up-Bring thought. There are signs of an ancient, extinct civilisation there. However, all that is left of them are the giant monoliths (the puzzles) that block your path along the shoreline of the island. Ever the puzzler, Dysis decides to tackle each puzzle head on. Though if they are too difficult for her, she can wade through the shallows of the ocean to skip them. As Dysis progresses further into the island she meets Clover, who is on the island to research the monoliths. Clover believes that the island holds the secret to immortality, and is searching for the artefact that is rumoured to grant its barer eternal life. The couple decide to team up to translate the secrets of the monolith and find Evan. However, what they discover on the island is much more than legends and a wiz kid. Too Much Story? My only issue with the game is its story. Surprisingly, the game is very plot heavy, with most of the actual play time been taken up by dialogue and cutscenes. Overall, I enjoyed the story but felt like it was trying too hard to be shocking and emotional. The writing was good and got me invested in the world, the legend of immortality and what the island actually was. In some ways, the game reminded me a little of Lost. This is because the island developed into something a little more sinister than first thought. However, the game tries to have too many WTF moments. Admittingly, the first one in the game is pretty good. Nevertheless, after that they come at the expense of the story. Most of the time they happen because the author is telling the player lies or is withholding information from them. In these cases, I found the writing to be a little lazy, as a revelation can be made in any story if you misled the reader or the player. It cheapened the reveals the game was trying to make and always made me think 'what, really?' Show Don't Tell Furthermore, the game just does not know when to end. The final act tells you everything that has happened and why. Therefore, you know how we came to this conclusion in the story (more or less). Then, the game makes you play through the story beats it JUST told you about. For me, this was a drag. Why do I need to play through something that you have already told me about? Plus, after all of this exposition the game makes one final revelation that basically messes up the whole story. Then the game ends without clarifying if the revelation it just made was real or not. Don't get me wrong, I liked the story but I felt there was a perfect finishing point where it should have ended. The last 30 minutes of the game was not needed and just confused me, leaving me with more questions than answers. Best Looking Indie of 2020? What blew me away about ER was its artsytle. Every new scene I entered I was mesmerised by. The island looks colourful and bright, however, the looming remains of the ancient civilisation add a tone of ruin to every scene, creating a stunning composition. In addition, the scenes at night are even more beautiful, with the moon reflecting off the water of the shore. My favourite thing about the art was seeing Dysis reflection in the water of the beach. I remember seeing this for the first time in a pixel art game with Pokemon Ruby. I don't know why, but I think it is a stunning affect and last the entirety of the game. Finally, Dysis's jumping and running animation are extremely well done. There's so many frames in her animation which can be seen best in her jump. I love the way her hat and hair move as she jumps and runs. It is little details like these that you don't see often in pixel art games. Sounds and Music The music in the game was ambient and gave off a very chilled vibe. Honestly though, it was not very memorable at all. I actually just had to watch my own youtube video of the game to remind me what it was like. However, I feel music took a backseat in the game to give you time to think during puzzles and not distract you in dialogue, which is fair enough. The sound design in ER were very well done. Every time you jumped on something there was a solid BUMP. This made Dysis feel like she had some weight and was actually landing on ancient blocks of stone. Verdict Evan's Remains is a good puzzle-platformer on the Nintendo Switch with an interesting but convoluted story. I'm not a big fan of the puzzle-platformer genre but I found the puzzles in Evan's Remains to be well designed and well placed to help the pacing of the game. All in all, apart from the gorgeous pixel art, the puzzles were my favourite thing about this indie title. The story starts off strong but soon becomes bloated and confusing. The final 30 minutes of the game could have been trimmed off, as I felt there was an earlier point where the game could have naturally ended. Don't get me wrong, I liked the story but it seemed the author was trying too hard to lace the plot with WTF revelations that usually came from sloppy writing. Ironically, by the end of the game I was scratching my head more over the plot than the puzzles. Nevertheless, for the price of about €7, Evan's Remains is a solid game. If you want something gorgeous to look at on your Switch and enjoy puzzle platformers, I'd highly suggest it. Though, you may have to bare with the story at the end of the game.