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Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #18/Blog a Day #13

Hello everyone, how are you?

There are many different games that tell different stories based on the theme and subject matter of said games. Like Mario rescuing Peach for the umpteenth time to Kirby slaying a god-level threat. Many games tell different stories but not many games out there tell stories that hit closer to home that tackle everyday issues. Normally because most games shy away from this. One such game that handles this well is a game by SWERY I played recently known as The MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories.

 

                                            The music in the game is really good

This is the case of a game that I have heard about but never actually got around to playing it. I only learned about it because it happens to be a favorite game of a good friend of mine. A sale later and I finally got it late last year but didn't play it till recently last month. But you might be asking how is the game?

I feel that this might be one of the hardest games that I ever had to write about, mostly due to not trying to spoil anything but I will do my best. The game begins with our protagonist J.J. Macfield, a college student. J.J. and her best friend Emily decide to take a camping trip to Memoria Island off the coast of Maine. While camping, Emily suddenly goes missing and it's up to J.J. to find her best friend, however this is anything but a simple search for a missing person as everything around J.J. becomes more and more surreal the further she searches.

The game is a 2D puzzle platfomer but the twist here is that you can't die. In order to get ahead and solve many of the game's puzzles you have to inflict pain and harm on yourself to get ahead in the game. Sometimes you need to burn and obstacle is to light yourself on fire or in many cases you need to cut off your own arm to solve a puzzle. And remember when I said you can't die? Well yes and no. You can regenerate your limbs and put yourself out from being on fire as well as heal any injury. You can actually die depending on how seriously injured you are and if you hit something like a saw blade. You will respawn at your last checkpoint when you do hit a hazard that can kill you.

 

                                              The scenery is really atmospheric

Like with any 2D platformer, there are collectibles in the game to find and collect, in The Missing they come in the shape of donuts. Who doesn't love donuts? Collecting a certain amount of donuts unlocks text messages that are conversations on J.J.'s phone that are from her friends and family. In these text messages she gets is where you get more out of the story. This is was a brilliant way to see the relationship J.J. has with those around her and you get to know more and more about her and her backstory as you unlock more messages.

The game has some really great and interesting looking areas. You are on an island but some of the locations are pretty cool to pretty surreal as your quest to find Emily goes on. The game isn't without its performance issues though. There are some areas in the game that the game does stutter in and I heard that it has the same problem on other platforms so it isn't exclusive to one version of the game. It only stutters once in certain areas and it works just fine so not much of a big issue.

"But Captain N, where can I play this game? It's available on PS4, Xbox One, Switch and on PC. I think whichever version is fine. Granted any of the non-Switch versions have achievements so if you like those then you can do that. Switch does have the conveneince factor of being able to play it anywhere so it's really up to you on what version you want. It goes on sale sometimes so I do suggest you pick it up if you can.

 

 Text messages explore J.J.'s relationship with her friends, family, as well her backstory

Final Thoughts: The Missing is by far one of the best games I have ever played. The game isn't that long, it's about 4-6 hours long but I can assure you that the time used playing this game is well worth it. The game encourages you to experiment with ways to solve the puzzles, there are some obvious ones to some really clever ones too. The actual gameplay might not be the best out there but the story makes up for that because this game is about the story that it is telling you.

The game also encourages a second playthrough to find and collect a number of new collectibles that get added in the game that unlock even more text messages from a certain character in the game. And yes, your progress from your previous playthrough carries over, from every collectible you got to every unlockable. Honeslty I think they handled the collectibles well here since collecting them unlocks text messages so you get a bigger picture of what's it like to live in J.J.'s shoes to unlocking alternate costumes and concept art and even cheats. More collectibles should do this.

The game tackles themes that other games don't and the ones that do often don't pull it off well. SWERY did an amazing job with the story and handling the topics, themes and issues of the game really well. Thing is, gender issues like this happen every day and the game translates that really well. Take J.J. for example, she goes through this every day of her life and the comments she gets from other people are hurtful, this translates into the game in the way of self-harm. You can hear her scream in pain whenever she gets hurt but she also brushes that off like it was nothing. That itself is a metaphor on what J.J. goes through each day where she gets hate but she ignores it as well as the self-harm she inflicts upon herself. There are moments in the story that will really get you, especially in the ending where it all makes sense as you piece all the clues you've been getting in the game together. The game tells you at the begining what you're about to see in the game, and that you aren't wrong for being who or what  you are. I agree, no one is.

 

                                                 Very well said. I couldn't agree more.

The world can be a cruel place. And it's even more harder when people resort to hatred, violence, and prejudice. It's even worse for those on the receiving end. Sometimes people can't imagine what you are going through but I want to say that you aren't alone. There are people out there who care about you and who will listen to you.

Well that's all for this one. For the next one Luigi is going to take us on a vacation to Hotel Mario. Yikes. Thanks for reading and...

 

 

 

*All game images were taken by my Switch and my copy of the game*