Iris Fall Review
Release Date: January 7th, 2021
Developers: NEXT Studios
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PC (Dec. 7th, 2018)
Price: $19.99
Puzzle games have always had a special place in my heart not only because of their puzzles, but because of how some games convey the significance of each, cleverly weaving them into a world and story that's told through the problem-solving of its gameplay. The nature of these games can always vary from title to title, as some puzzles suffer from being nonsensical, making only sense to the developers themselves that thought they were being clever but were just unintuitive and focused on the conclusion rather than the thought process behind a puzzle, but most other times in games like The Room, The Witness, Agent A, and more recent titles like Superliminal, Carto, and Manifold Garden, you're left with a profound experience where you feel like you've walked away with something by the end of it, having the puzzles stick with you making you think not only to solve them, but *about* them well after you've completed the game. A big standout for puzzle titles also is that they can go a step beyond and give a stunning visual style to help represent and complement the puzzles and narrative further - which all the aforementioned games have in addition to those such as Monument Valley and Antichamber - and Iris Fall easily caught my attention right away when it was announced as coming to Switch thanks to its striking visuals. However throughout my surprisingly short time with it as the game itself isn't particularly long, I was left with a disappointing shallow experience that felt more like a concept with immense potential than anything worthwhile in its bigger picture.
Leading up to Iris Fall's release, I kept thinking of a game that kicked off last generation (PS4/Xbox One) for me and quickly became one of my favorite games arguably of all time: Contrast. Contrast was one of the games given out as a launch title through PlayStation Plus and also available on other platforms, and I remember downloading it on PC and not being able to put it down, beating it in one sitting as time flew by me without a care in the world. It engrossed me and took me through a fantastic narrative about a girl and her imaginary friend that could go in-between a 3D and 2D plane shadow world across any surface with sufficient light cast upon it. Iris Fall oozed elements of this with even more of an Alice in Wonderland aesthetic, and quickly became my next big puzzle game to look forward to. Unbeknownst to me, Iris Fall initially came out in late 2018 on PC, so this game wasn't exactly new, but I decided to continue holding out for the console port that one would hope would be a bit more enhanced, polished, and optimized for those platforms. Despite the wait, now that Iris Fall is out on consoles, the gap of time between PC and its console release has neither included any enhancement, polish, or optimization, leaving a poor port and a shell of its former self, and giving a game that has such a vague storyline to the point it almost doesn't have one, making everything seem disjointed and unwarranted as you phase from area to area and puzzle to puzzle.
The puzzles themselves don't necessarily offer much challenge and instead are more of an inconvenience, not entirely complementing the world around it and instead feeling like more of a trap rather than something to get excited about. Rooms would vary from large to medium to small, coming in a variety of different styles like utilizing shifting from your regular human form to a shadow to take advantage of going up or down any given space, mix and matches, deduction skills, Rubik's cubes, light manipulation, and more, all done in a mostly black and white presentation that sets a tone for the environment and makes it visually appealing, but doesn't do much else or even help the vague story. Handholding is at a minimum, and in this case it's appreciated to a degree, but sometimes you can't help but feel like you're doing something wrong when there's a fair amount of unresponsiveness that come from certain inputs and interactions, such as never seemingly being close enough to the books which help you phase from 2D to 3D as you follow a mysterious black cat throughout your journey. Now, to some, a vague story can be okay as some of the more profound games that have been well received like GRIS, Stela, or Journey don't really hand you any story through voice or any sort of literature you may pick up, instead relying on symbolism, imagery, clever environmental design, and dynamic music that immerses you into the game and, through its gameplay, carries you throughout what is quite literally an experience from beginning to end that you're left to marinate in well after you've completed a playthrough, leaving it up to some form of interpretation, which, to me, continues the fun well after a game is turned off. Iris Fall unfortunately doesn't have any of these redeeming elements, and despite unique and inviting visuals that may intrigue those that appreciate art like me, it ultimately feels hollow, feeling consistently unrewarding.
Majority of Iris Fall was so basic to the point that it felt like an odd take on a walking simulator more so, and while I love walking sims, I think my experience with puzzles has gotten to the point where some of the lesser challenging ones become more of a bore than, say, something like The Turing Test or QUBE. While the approach to level design is obviously different and should still be classified in different categories, the same general genre is here, and Iris Fall's lack of optimization mechanically, technically, and visually on Nintendo Switch does it a disservice. To give even more into the inconsistencies of Iris Fall, while it has touchscreen support, only a few things are able to be interacted with such as a permanently lingering pause button as if it's a mobile game, and a bag in the corner of the screen to use certain items you've come across to help solve or unlock other things. Many times I felt I'd come across a puzzle that I feel would be nice to simply touch, grab, or swipe to make things more intuitive, but instead I'm left to continue with using inputs that more often than not continue to feel unresponsive. One of the more frustrating aspects to some of Iris Fall's puzzles is that there are puzzles within puzzles from level to level, and while that's not an issue in itself, being unable to reset a certain puzzle and having no choice but to start from the previous checkpoint is an odd choice when you're dealing with something like, say, the Rubik's Cube or a convoluted light puzzle that also involves some sort of rearranging of objects, so you're meant to continue your run of trial and errors unless you're willing to restart from the previous checkpoint.
Graphically, outside of its visual style, I can't help but continue to feel frustrated that we're now almost four years into the Switch's lifecycle and we still see games that continue to come out that have no excuse to look and run the way they do. Anti-aliasing is almost unheard of in any port, and resolution tends to target a 3DS more than a contemporary display, as if the 720p LCD in Switch's handheld mode is more of a suggestion than anything else, and paying absolutely no mind to docked mode. Frames jumping all over the place, sudden stutters, and other little mishaps combine together to make a big problem that hinder Iris Fall's enjoyment further, and the audacity to charge double the price for a physical copy of the game at $39.99 compared to its $19.99 digital price tag (and even $5 less on PC), for an average of two hours is baffling, and it still feels like developers and publishers are porting games to take advantage of popularity than any meaningful connection or respect for the craft and its consumers. I understand ports will vary from studio to studio and team to team as not everyone can be a technical wizard, and sometimes it simply comes down to being unable to fund the labors towards making a respectable transition, but this is a situation we see so often - and tends to trend with certain studios and types of games no less - that you can only point fingers at the hardware so much before you have to take responsibility for yourself. We've all seen what the Switch is capable of from other third-party studios - nevermind first-party - and truthfully anything is possible. With the likes of Hellblade, Witcher, and even more stylized titles like Ori, New Super Lucky's Tale, and Hades, it's a wonder why something like Iris Fall has any trouble at all. The scenes aren't necessarily complex, there's not much in the way of buttons and animations, and the protagonist herself more often than not is the only person on screen at any given moment. I can forgive 30fps as it's perfectly fine for a title like this, but the visual drawbacks are akin to an auto-scaler putting things on low settings on a business laptop from 2014.
The more time I would spend with Iris Fall, the more upset I would get. Iris Fall had everything it needed to be the next puzzle game for me to fall in love with, as stylized and borderline profound puzzle games like this that tell their story through the environments and the puzzles themselves are one of my creative pleasures that I'll never get tired of seeing, but the continued tediousness and clunkiness of the controls, animations, and inputs overall had me feeling like it was more of a chore to play than what could've been an immersive and truly fun puzzle-solving experience. While the game will only take 1-2 hours, the unoptimized nature of it - especially on Switch - even has its short duration feel like it's overstaying its welcome, and with elements reminiscent of titles like Contrast, Another Sight, Escape Plan, and Fran Bow, it truly is a shame that the genre of choice - its puzzles - is ultimately what held back this being an astounding title, up with the aforementioned games that left their mark in the respective genres.
PROS:
A fantastic art direction where its black and white approach helps set a tone
The music is very fitting
CONS:
Tedious puzzles, while some are easy, make them feel like obnoxious obstacles rather than engaging gameplay elements
Way too short for the asking price
Graphical shortcomings and sacrifices on Switch feel like a quick port-job
Lack of polish from inputs to frustrating movement
A big thank you to PM Studios for providing us with a copy of Iris Fall for the purposes of this review