Figment review

Recommended

by krai

I had hoped for a similar Game to Bastion, apparently an Inspiration for Figment. I wouldn't have mind the somewhat childish-innocent look, on the Contrary. Bastion is not necessarily my Favourite Game, but I liked it to some extent, so the Bar was not all too high. Figment did not live up to my Expectations. First of All, the positive Things: The drawn levels are really very lovingly drawn and I liked the instrumental Background Music pretty much. In most Levels, the Music dynamically adapts to the Player's Position, so that in a Piece, for example, a Guitar can only be heard when the Player is currently near a Guitar. However, the individual Instruments always play in sync with each other, so the Concept goes up pretty well. Unfortunately, there are also many Things that I didn't like: The Gameplay is quite sluggish overall, the Protagonist runs about as fast as other People go. The whole Game feels quite dragged out by this. The Puzzles (almost just sliding And Switch Puzzles) are not particularly demanding, so I mostly knew the Solution after a few Seconds, but then took 1-2 Minutes to Execute because the Character was so slow. The Fights are even more arduous and offer no interesting Features. The (English) Voiceover is very mixed. I still find the Protagonists and his Companion Quite successful, but the Inhabitants of the Game world often have quite annoying Voices and an endeavely funny but little exhilarating Accent. This gets Really bad in the short musical pieces (!), which the Final Opponents often scatter. The Dialogues in the Game are not a Highlight anyway, but the Lyrics are one Step below it. For example, an End opponent is supposed to symbolize Despair and Depression, but his Poetry would be connected to Fremjam even for 13-year-old Emo-songwriters. The fact that he pronounces "sanity" more like "sanitary" (hygienic) is the Crown on the Whole thing. An Interim Boss with less musical Talent stands for Illness and Dirt and wants to give us a Syringe with which he ... Eggmental wants to infect. Yes, that's the actual Lyrics of the Vocal Insert during his Fight. And no, the Game doesn't have the Kind of internet humor that finds something like this funny. The Story itself is quite corny and can be summed up with "Don't let doubt and grief stop you, but hold out!," which is also conveyed several times with the subtle Expressiveness of Kindergarten Pedagogy. The Game's Approach of crawling around in a Person's Brain in psychonauts fashion, and so using psychoanalytics and proven "Hau to the Parts of your Brain that will annoy you" Neurosurgery with Problems, is basically an interesting Idea. Unfortunately, this Idea is a bit out of Place in the Game, because as you can already recognize in the Intro and get clear again in the End, the Person we are supposed to help actually has other Problems: They had a Car accident and are now in a Coma or at least unconscious and br Is smoking urgent medical Treatment. It does not help her much if she finds her Self-confidence again or processes her Childhood experiences. As if that were not enough, the German Subtitles (otherwise quite neat, if not faultless) Often have Dropouts, so that instead of the Text only "Err 501" Is displayed. With a Character, that happens relatively reliably in every second Set. Shortly before the End of the game, when the Story is almost complete and tension is to be built up again, it also happened at least once, Which weakened the Immersion once again. All in all, Figment is a Game that has some Ambitions, but apart from the Graphics and Instrumental Music does not achieve much of it. It's not a Bastion, it's not a Psychonauts, it's also not particularly exciting, entertaining or kid-friendly I'm disappointed with a Game I got in an already paid Humble Monthly Bundle basically in addition to the Main Attractions. If I Had paid extra for it, I would be quite angry now. I definitely advise you on Buying.