Split Fiction - Review
When developer Hazelight Studios released A Way Out, I wanted to play it, but was unable to find someone who had the time to do it with me, so when It Takes Two came out, I made sure I could play it. That game was delightful and 23 million other folks agree, so I knew that I would enjoy Split Fiction, the only real question was by how much. It turns out that it was a lot, in fact to quote Lloyd Christmas, I like it a lot.
Split Fiction tells the story of two aspiring writers, Mio and Zoe. Both of them have their own reasons for writing and they are revealed while you play, so I won’t spoil them here. However, while they are writers of a sort, they are unpublished so when they and a host of other would be novelists get publishing offers from Rader Publishing, they all believe that they are finally getting recognised. It turns out that Rader Publishing has spent the past 20 years developing a machine that lets people step into the worlds that they have created, so a writer of military action, might find themselves standing upon a ship at war. For Mio and Zoe, they are writers of Sci-fi and Fantasy respectively and while Zoe is all in on this new tech, Mio is unsure. Events happen and the pair find themselves in the same worlds, and they realise that they need to work together in order to escape their own worlds and return back to the real one.
Now there is a lot more going on here than just that, there is an entire subplot around the publishing house and the machine, sorry The Machine, but I won’t spoil anything about that. I will however say that it is the weakest part of the story, so given that most of the story takes place within the worlds created by Zoe and Mio is a good thing. There is a problem with the stories of both leads and that is down to just how predictable they are, again no spoilers, but I was able to guess the plot twists that the game was throwing. Of course, that won’t be the case for everyone, but if you have seen almost anything from Hollywood or something produced for streaming, you will likely see the outcomes ahead of their official reveals.
Where the game shines however is with the gameplay, which like the other games from the developer, requires two players to enjoy. Like the last game, there are no two levels that are the same, which is driven home by the swap from Sci-fi to Fantasy and back again. Some stages will have you speeding across the roofs of buildings while dodging enemy fire, others will have you becoming a tree and growing up, while your partner turns into a monkey. What is fun is that while you might have an idea of what you could see, when you enter a sci-fi world, you won’t know until you start to play. Without a doubt though, the final stage is the best in the game, it is so good I am almost tempted to spoil it, just so I can talk about it, but I won’t. The game has a number of side stories, which are like prototype levels, they are brief and challenging. Now we did not do all of these side stories, only in the interest of time, but the few we did complete were great fun, though sand sharks suck.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, it is mostly a standard platformer, with the occasional puzzle in the mix. There is nothing bad about it, if you played It Takes Two, then most of what you will get here will be familiar. There are times when one player will have to do the complicated movement, while the other pulls some levers, but those times are also reversed later on. What I would have liked to have seen, was an ability to temporarily swap characters, so if one player is not able to do something, the other player could take control and get it done. The game does have an option to skip ahead to the next checkpoint, but that could mean you miss something fun. The problem I have right now is that I want to explain about the various parts of the game, but I honestly feel that you need to discover them for yourself. Something I will touch upon are the bosses, there are quite a number of them in the game and some we conquered fairly easy and some were quite bothersome. The game does provide checkpoints in the boss fights, so in event that both players fall in battle, you may not need to start over again, but those checkpoints are not frequent.
Sadly, there are some gameplay issues that I do need to report on, the first is with the grapple mechanic. Yes, both Zoe and Mio wrote grapple mechanics into their stories, go figure. There are times when you will be running along a wall or flung into the air and you will be prompted to grab a point with your grapple. When it does work, the game will often have you pulled to safety, but there were a number of times when the prompt would appear and then it just never registered the press. This was not a mistiming thing on my part, it also happened to the other player, it was random and it was annoying. There were also times when the game would require us to jump, usually from a pole to safety, but occasionally it would just not register the jump or worse the jump was just not enough to reach the ledge. The number of times each issue popped up was not a small number, but in the end, it didn’t detract from the fun we had, but it is something to be aware of.
Perhaps one area where I can’t fault things is with the presentation, the game looks amazing. There are some incredible vistas in almost every stage, with again that final stage being the most amazing. The vistas are so good and the developers know it, that there are benches to sit on and enjoy them. Honestly, I feel that the final stage is the first game that honestly proves why we needed the new consoles, but again spoilers. Zoe and Mio are delightful characters, with Mio being the more serious of the two and it shows in the face she displays to the world. That means those times when she lets loose, or shows a more vulnerable side, it really shows. Zoe on the other hand is utterly delighted by almost everything, even when she is in the sci-fi worlds and not that happy to see it all, she still has joy on her face. The other humans look ok, but you can tell the care really went into the two protagonists. The denizens of the various worlds you visit all look good, they fit the style of each location and while the sci-fi worlds tend to be a little similar at times, they have enough variety to stand out.
For all the good, there is a little bad to report and its around the games performance. When a character spawns in from a death, it does trigger a little lag spike in performance, things run a little slow. These are barely a second or two, but it is noticeable, however when you both die those spikes last near 5 seconds. This might not seem like a big deal, but sometimes those deaths come from crashing into a wall during an escape sequence or something else as exciting and having to deal with lag while you respawn is just weird. There was also a bizarre occurrence where my side of the game had the visuals drop to like 2 frames per second, but the audio continued fine and my mate had no issues. I paused the game and it took a while for it to show on my screen, but when I unpaused, things were totally fine.
The games audio is just as delightful as the visuals, with again the voice work for the characters being a real stand out. While I was not a fan of Rader’s storyline, the vocal performance that the actor brings in is incredible and makes the character all the richer for it. There are some ancillary characters that pop up once or twice in the various tales and they feel a little bland compared to the mains, but they are still decent enough. The games score is great as well, with the fantasy levels evoking a sense of the familiar melodies that often accompany fantasy movies. The sci-fi levels have music, but I honestly couldn’t tell you about them, those levels are just a little to frantic at times for me to have registered any particular track.
Split Fiction is an incredible game, from the first world you get to explore until the very end, everything here is designed to bring you joy. The characters of Mio and Zoe are amazing, both fall into stereotype roles, but that doesn’t detract from just how delightful it is to see them discover each other’s worlds. Honestly the weakest part for me was the story, it falls so easily into the predictable, with The Machine being a key indicator of that. The story is not bad, but it feels like it has been seen before and nothing really shocked me. Gameplay wise there is a lot to like about the game, there are some challenging moments, which could trip up some folks, but being able to skip ahead should solve that. If you are someone who enjoys gaming with a friend or partner, then you owe it to yourself to play the game, while it is not a narrative powerhouse, it is an incredible playhouse and that is what matters.
The Score
9.0
Review code provided by Electronic Arts
The Pros
Each world feels complete and while the time in them is limited, it never feels wasted
Zoe and Mio are delightful, while stereotypical, they are still a hoot at times
The Cons
The story is predictable, which is a bit of a shame when it’s about writers
There are some technical issues that pop up quite frequently
