Farewell North (XSX) Review

Published by Mooneye Studios, of the emotionally excellent Lost Ember, Farewell North is another melancholy tale designed to pull at your heartstrings. While the overall presentation is beautiful, complete with an outstanding musical score, the gameplay isn’t as striking.

Farewell North is an adventure puzzle game revolving around restoring color to your previous home. Uniquely, instead of playing as the main human protagonist, the player takes control of border collie who has the ability to fight back the gray, dull world. The sad, dramatic narrative is one of grief, loss, and moving forward. It is designed in a way that should make you think about your life and how each moment should be cherished – it carries a heavy message.

Playing as a dog creates some interesting set pieces and mechanics. Since the narrative is ultimately about restoring color, pressing a button makes your immediate area glow. Certain objects within this color bubble then become activated, opening the door for things to happen. For example, making flowers grow, then bringing one to a switch to activate the thing which unlocks passage to the next part. Even though it is easy to see the one glowing object in a sea of black and white, it isn’t always clear what the player is supposed to do. Early in the quest, I knew I was supposed to restore a bridge to get to the other side of an island. After aimless walking around for an hour, I had to resort to an online guide. Sure enough, I was supposed to bring a glowing thing to a specific area to trigger the action. However, I did this before, it just didn’t register for some reason. I wish there were button prompts or waypoint markers because the solution is usually very simple but it isn’t always obvious.

Unfortunately, I ran into more glitches than I care to admit. My game once softlocked during a cutscene. During one of the sheep herding segments, one lone sheep got stuck on the environment and starting freaking out to hilarious results. To be fair, this game was created by a small indie team.

Taking place across several islands, traversal is a big part of the experience. However, the canoe paddling is the biggest annoyance and one of the most performed actions. By default, the player is tasked with alternating button presses to align with each stroke of the oar. While this mimics real life, it gets tedious immediately. Thankfully, there is an option to turn on simplified boat controls where you push the analog stick in the direction you want to go. This is by far the best option to toggle because there is a lot of canoeing, which gets boring because there is nothing to do boating to the next island. Sure, there is the occasional collectable to find off the beaten path, but when controlling the boat isn’t the best, it becomes more trouble than it is worth.

With so many islands spread across a vast space, not having a map system seems like this game is missing a majorly needed feature. Main events are tracked in a diary, one that takes too long to open and close, but it lacks detail. Plus, the player is not informed of the number of missing collectables until you set foot on that specific island. This means if you miss something and want to return, you need to first navigate the tricky canoe segment, hope you find the correct island, then wait for the screen to transition to actually being on the island. It is a lot of work and time to navigate when all this could have been alleviated with a map and fast travel system. 

Despite there being obvious flaws and annoyances, there are still plenty of praises to sing. First, obviously, is the somber, heartfelt narrative. To be clear, there is no combat. There is no leveling up (although the dog’s stamina meter can be increased). There are no abilities to enhance. There is no danger to overcome. There is no time limit. The story takes the driver’s seat as all aspects and could possibly shed a tear or two along the way. Rarely are games this heartfelt. At the same time, one of the reasons why this game’s narrative is as powerful comes from the sweeping Gaelic soundtrack. Without question, the musical score is easily a 10/10 in terms of quality and use. As an example, pressing a button to restore a glob of color to the world releases a musical tone which fits so tightly into the narrative. These sad, slow tunes add a thick layer on the emotional narrative, and this game wouldn’t be as stunning without it.

Despite the blemishes within the gameplay, they are almost, almost overlooked due to the deep narrative and presentation. Storywise, it is just as memorable as other gaming greats (see links below) but gameplaywise, others do it better. However, this is still another must-play release by Mooneye Studios and excited to see what games are in their future.

Also Play: RiME

Don’t Forget About: Wavetale  

Not As Polished As: Lost Ember

By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

Twitter: @ZackGaz

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