4.5/5 ★ – TheCriticalPandaBoi's review of Split Fiction.

So, I played Split Fiction awhile ago when it originally came out, and I had it as my personal game of the year… admittedly no other game that good had released at that point, at least one I have played, but I still think it’s a strong game. This is the latest game by Hazelight Studios, who you would most likely know developed A Way Out and one of my favourite games for couples that I was too single to play with an actual person in a relationship with, It Takes Two, and when comparing this to those games, there’s definitely an opinion I have. Whenever Hazelight Studios releases a new game, I am personally always willing to get one of my friends and play through them, i just think they are perfect multiplayer games that actually feel nostalgic to classic split screen gaming. I can’t say I miss split screen all that much, as an autistic kid with ADHD sprinkled like dandruff on top, it always kinda distracted me, but I remember playing a lot of split screen games funnily enough. Like, I used to play a bunch of Tom Clancy games with my dad that had multiplayer on the PS3, I’d also play Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Zombies with my sister, I even played some of Call of Duty: Ghosts at my childhood friends house, and don’t get me started on the hours and hours I spent on the LEGO games. You get the point, I had experience with split screen gameplay as a kid, and while yes I heavily prefer the standard online gaming nowadays, there’s something nostalgic with these kinda games bringing back that split screen element. It’s not just couch co-op of course, this is also online multiplayer but it requires a friend to actually play it, so thankfully I had a friend from Germany who was more than happy to play with me so we had a blast! You’re only really coming to this game for the very inventive gameplay, and in that department, this game feels so good to play, which is exactly what you want from a platformer like this. I don’t know if this is a hot take or not but I think Split Fiction, from a gameplay perspective, is the best game they’ve made, it’s just so creative and wacky but I love it. Like I mentioned with the split screen, there’s several occasions here where they get really creative with gameplay sequences and it’s just thinking outside the box I would’ve never have thought about. All the little side stories they’ve created are these mini games never got boring and it was endlessly entertaining throughout the whole thing. I’m also a fan of the creative ideas with this story, more so the concept of being transported into these old unfinished drafts of these stories, tackling the sci-fi and fantasy genre, and as somebody who loves both, I got a lot out of these. Also, there’s a Sailor Moon reference…. It’s very tough to make both the fantasy elements and the sci-fi elements engaging in the gameplay, but somehow, Hazelight Studios fucking pulls it off. It’s great they pulled it off because it really does make up for how bland our main characters are, the story itself is fine, I have no complaints about it per say, it’s definitely serviceable for the games concept to actively work. My main issue is really just the characters we follow, the actual antagonist of the game, JD Rader, he’s just kinda generic and bland to me, Ben Turner is great as the voice, i actually heard him before in Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, which is the most forgettable AC game but that’s neither here or there. Normally if it was just a villain problem, I wouldn’t make a big deal about the characters but i actually kinda think the protagonists were kinda poorly written. If you like or relate to either Mio or Zoe, that’s completely fine, but for me, I felt they were kinda on the nose and kinda generic personally, it never really felt like they were developing as friends over time. Both Kaja Chan as Mio and Elsie Bennett as Zoe are very good, especially Elsie Bennett, she’s just got so much charisma, but I feel like they kinda lacked any sort of character development in my opinion. It’s not like Vincent and Leo from A Way Out where across the entire game, you’re constantly watching these two inmates build up a really nice friendship between each other, it really does feel like that’s the peak of Hazelight’s writing for characters. And it’s definitely nowhere near how good Cody and May’s character development was in It Takes Two, that was a game where it’s required for the story as it’s a married couple on the verge of divorce so they need to fix their relationship, and that building feels a lot more gradual and compelling than any of the games they’ve made. But Split Fiction, despite Mio and Zoe not being nearly as bad as the worst written protagonists in media, I still think they really could’ve been better written, especially when you I’ve given you two better examples from two of the games they’ve made. Honestly though, if that’s my only real complaint then that’s a sign on how strong this game is, I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite game of the year anymore, i think I’ll give that to Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, but this is easily second place so far, i still gotta play more games so this might change! Overall, Split Fiction is a phenomenal game, without a doubt the best gameplay and most fun game Hazelight Studios has ever developed, but out of the co-op games they’ve made, I still think that It Takes Two is on top!