The Unfinished Swan (PS Vita)
Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what exactly a video game is going for, and The Unfinished Swan seems to be one of those titles. The story half and gameplay half of The Unfinished Swan aren’t necessarily incompatible or even an ill fit for each other, but it does feel like the game is trying to court different audiences with each half. For the story, we have what seems like a fairly unironic storybook approach that touches on fairly simple themes, and on the other we have a relaxed and experimental 3D exploration game. While neither part is done poorly, it feels like the gameplay may turn away children and the straightforward story might not have enough meat for an adult to sink their teeth into.
Despite the fairy tale like presentation, I do not think the story is necessarily aimed at children. The Unfinished Swan has the elements that fit the mold of a tale that can be presented to an adult or child and have both extract something from the experience. Cutscenes involve a storybook image being drawn as a gentle, motherly voice almost like a kind kindergarten teacher reads the words to the player, the words themselves often having the simplicity of a children’s tale as well. The lazy giant isn’t just lazy, he’s the laziest giant ever whose laziness is reiterated even after he’s identified in the same sentence as a lazy giant. Sentences make sure to simply highlight an emotional response rather than leaving any ambiguity or using wording beyond saying “Monroe was happy”. The game is not unaware of this though, the game showing you opening and closing a picture book to play or exit the game, but it does lead to very little complexity being present in the narrative, and since the game seems to fall into the tropes of art games and narrative driven experiences, it does feel like it comes up a bit short by committing to a narrative style that doesn’t do the tale being told many favors.
The tale itself involves a young boy named Monroe whose mother was a prolific painter who seemed to never finish her art, but with her passing, all of it is lost, Monroe only able to keep an unfinished drawing of a swan as he is sent off to an orphanage. However, one night the swan in the image leaps from the canvas and leads Monroe off into a strange world, and at first, all the game’s story seems interested in is the pursuit of the swan. Soon though, Monroe will uncover storybook pages telling the tale of a king who painted his own kingdom, and we move into the game’s main message of the troubles creative types experience with realizing their imagination and leaving a mark on the world through their creations, along with how the reactions of others and the world can impede or influence it. It sounds like a deep theme with some legs, and it doesn’t necessarily squander it, but we only exit the realm of simple presentation and get into a more thoughtful and profound look at it all right before the game ends. It’s an ending that finally begins to weave things together into a more meaningful message that drops everything and rolls the credits before it could really complete the exploration of the message, and while it doesn’t leave you without saying its piece on the whole affair, it is likely to leave you hungry for more of the more thoughtful discussion found at the end rather than the slow unfolding of a story book tale that, during the rest of the game, had a very simple underlying message to it all. The success of the narrative is completely reliant on the finale resonating with the player, something it doesn’t work that hard to achieve.
The ending is interesting enough that it prevents the game from being a hollow experience, in turn rescuing The Unfinished Swan from being almost too much like a fairy tale. At the same time, that ending could be seen as a commitment to the story book structure, presenting the game’s moral in plain words so it’s not missed or misinterpreted. I’m not quite sure the gameplay is the best fit for the messages on creativity the game is trying to portray though. At first, the game throws you into an entirely white, seemingly empty void, your only abilities being to jump and to launch black ink around you in small balls. When the first ball hits the whiteness though, you’ll see that this world isn’t empty, but invisible until you’ve added your color to it. Navigation is dependent on you finding your way around by painting the environment, and there’s a pretty simple thrill to gradually exposing the decorations and settings that were once entirely invisible. It’s not quite creating your own world, but it gives the sensation of doing so for a fair bit. It does lose its luster after a while though as there’s not much to it besides coloring a way to follow the swan, but the game does introduce new ways to interact with the world with every chapter, often doing so at the expense of the previous chapters gimmick. Painting the unfinished world gives way to using water to guide the growth of vines around a mostly complete kingdom or navigating a dark area by hitting lights to reveal the shadowy world. Most levels have hidden balloons to find as well, but this side task exists mainly to unlock more things to help with the side task, making it a pretty basic diversion from some already simple forward progression.
The changing style of play make for a more varied and shifting gameplay experience, but things quickly diverge from having a creative tie to the messages of the game to providing typical gameplay challenges to overcome like jumping across platforms and activating switches. This might not have been a problem if the story was more compelling, and while its tale is easy to sympathize with, its not particularly gripping or evocative outside of those easily relatable elements. Both halves of the game seem to have avoided being more involved so that the other isn’t obligated to keep pace, leading to neither plot nor gameplay excelling in their design. It can almost be said that the game is trying to instill an experience of incompleteness with its own inability to see things through to the full satisfaction of completion and full realization. It feels like more deliberate invocation would be required to sell such a message as most of the gameplay styles featured feel old before they’re abandoned rather than being abruptly ended to represent that state of unfinished realization.
The Unfinished Swan is still interesting at least. The black paint splattering to unveil a hidden world is visually striking, and even when you get to constructed environments that aren’t obscured you’ll get a few visual treats and interesting setpieces. Simple puzzles enter the fray to make navigation a bit more interesting, but overall it has a fairly relaxed pace that might not engage some players, playing into my belief that children might be turned off by it. For adults, things might be too simple to really capture their interest, thus leaving The Unfinished Swan in a sort of nebulous zone of not really having a particular audience to recommend it to. Its elements feel like they fell short rather than being specifically flawed, but it’s difficult to try and read too much into the straightforward messages. There will be people who are enraptured by the visuals and message on creativity and those who it washes right over, but the game just doesn’t feel strong enough to ensure specific reactions.
THE VERDICT: It’s hard to be too harsh or too kind to The Unfinished Swan. It’s got an interesting visual direction even if it forsakes it eventually for gameplay, its message is a good one but it doesn’t really explore it that well, and the gameplay segments aren’t bad, they just aren’t realized to their full potential. In a way, that’s the main combining factor of the game. A lot of potential but the delivery ends up being so-so as it chases new ideas and leaves many of them too thin for thoughtful reflection. Matching the message of your game does not always pay off with a particularly meaningful end product.
And so, I give The Unfinished Swan for the PlayStation Vita…
An OKAY rating. To put it succinctly, The Unfinished Swan is best thought of as a piece of art, but not a particularly exceptional one. An art gallery will have many pieces hanging in it, and sometimes there’s a piece that catches the eye but doesn’t invite much more than brief consideration before you move on to the next piece. From a story perspective The Unfinished Swan only whips its story into a meaningful form at the end and didn’t have the time left to say something more meaningful on the subjects presented about creativity and legacies. From a gameplay perspective it only toys with each mechanic enough that they aren’t boring but they don’t see any particularly enlightened designs or puzzles to challenge the tools given to the player. In this way we return to the initial quandary: its story is simple enough for a kid to enjoy but the game is not engaging enough, and the story is a bit too simple for a more learned adult but the gameplay has a steady and relaxed pace an adult might not be bothered by. Neither side of the game is empty as there’s enough to them to invite consideration, just not contemplation. A greater commitment to both sides would give us the best form The Unfinished Swan could take, and not putting the culmination of the game’s message in an all-too-short ending would give it more time to be fleshed out and explored. There is already some striking visual representation of ideas the game raises, you just have to push through a lot of functional world design to get to see those meaningful parts.
The Unfinished Swan doesn’t feel incomplete, it just feels a bit unambitious. If it can’t completely commit to its message or design then it’s unlikely many players will be willing to commit to playing it.