The Lost Bear (PS4)
It is almost inevitable that any virtual reality game will receive a few potential players asking why the game can’t just be released as a traditional controller-based experience, and there are certainly many VR games that could be easily converted away from VR without feeling drastically different. However, there is usually some added layer to the gameplay by mandating it be played in virtual reality, whether it’s heightened immersion, a fully realized environment surrounding environment, or some other feature that won’t work quite as well or feel quite as interesting if you were simply viewing it on a T.V. screen. However, if there is one game that seems to have no excuse for being in virtual reality, it might just be The Lost Bear.
The Lost Bear is almost entirely a 2D puzzle platformer that really wouldn’t strike anyone as something that VR could enhance, and very little effort was put into making this a virtual reality experience. For some reason, the game has the player in their VR headset view the action of the game from an in-game chair they can’t leave as they watch what looks like a puppet show theater open up to reveal some admittedly nice looking hand-drawn images. Very rarely does anything escape the confines of this theater and when it does it’s not really interesting enough to justify the extra layer of work put into this side of the game. Sure, at one point a beehive sends bees into your face when it gets hit and at another point toys keep dumping in around you, but there is pretty much nothing that engages with the player sitting in the audience in any substantial way save a puzzle where you have to look around the area for some pillars to activate, a puzzle that isn’t interesting enough to justify its presence. At best, this odd choice for a viewing angle comes with a few changes of scenery to match the area the characters in the play are at, and these look good enough for what they are and match the art style well enough, but nothing feels like it necessitated this abstraction in what could have been a traditional 2D platformer.
Still, The Lost Bear, despite being baffling in its choice of locking itself into VR play only, has a few charming aspects. Presented almost like a wordless fairy tale, the characters look like they could be from a picture book, the story focusing on the simple quest of a child to reclaim her lost teddy bear. While it never speaks a word of its plot to you, the visual language is strong enough to know what little there is to follow. The main character is a girl named Walnut who is living out in the wilderness with a relative when her toy bear is taken away by a minion of a strange metallic hag known as the The Snatcher. Walnut heads off to get her favorite toy back, the natural forests parting to reveal the metallic scrapyards and toy-filled domain of The Snatcher as she presses forward, metallic hounds and hostile environments standing in her way as she goes. However, her teddy bear may just be more than it seems on this fanciful adventure, as soon a true bear is spotted in the forest who doesn’t seem as hostile as the metallic creatures pilfering playthings.
Most of your adventure will be forward walks through dangerous areas, the player needing to jump to clear gaps or escape enemy attacks. Sometimes the game cranks up the danger so these must done with the right timing to survive, although a failure only sets you back to a fairly recent checkpoint since this does seem to be a VR experience fit for children and one that wouldn’t want to frustrate them. The only other consistent part of your abilities would be Walnut’s slingshot, its short but not quite immediate draw time preventing you from overusing it or trying to squeak out of a tightspot with it. When it’s time for it to truly be put to effective use, it’s often during a puzzle where you can do things at your own pace.
The slingshot is certainly a pretty basic tool for puzzle-solving, but the game gets decent mileage from it like setting up a trap for a mechanical hound or shooting something that will knock down a usable platform or unclog a drain full of junk so you can move through it. Most of the game will stick to things like timed movement, avoiding hazards that fall in a pattern or enemies who are on patrol. However, there is one more type of puzzle that does break the bound of the puppet show presentation but not really in an overly interesting way.
Your PlayStation 4 controller’s motion controls are put to the test in The Lost Bear, as from time to time a lever or other device in the game world will require a more tactile manipulation than a simple button press. When these segments crop up, a pedestal to place your controller in will appear in the virtual area in front of you, and you need to cram your controller into it and start moving it appropriately. You might move it up and down to simulate manipulating or lever or be asked to rotate it like a wheel, although this isn’t the most perfect motion reading so it can be a small struggle to get it to read your movements precisely. However, this can also benefit you as rotating a wheel can instead just involve tilting your controller to the side repeatedly instead of going for the more complex motion of full controller spins. These can have their moments despite being more gimmicky than challenging, such as needing to arrange platforms properly with a car magnet, but their odd controls could have certainly been done better without the pedestal concept. At another point in the game you point your controller around like a flashlight to help Walnut… a girl whose adventure is on a single flat screen so there’s not much to lighting up the area she’s moving in besides not getting lazy and lowering your controller. These moments of motion controls do spice up what otherwise would be an incredibly basic platformer, but much like the slingshot, they are never given too much pressure, pedestals proving to be puzzle tools exclusively rather than action challenges.
Thankfully, these odd attempts at contextualizing a role for your spot in the chair don’t hamper things either, and most of the puzzles are decent enough amusements for what they are. Things move at a good pace in a game that really only needs an hour or two to complete, and besides the optional firefly lanterns you can pop with your slingshot as a collectible, its focus on being a quick little fantasy adventure is never strayed from. It’s cute, it requires enough active participation to never feel slow, and while the puzzles are never hard, they do require just enough activity and thought from the player that the game never finds the time to settle down into something dull.
THE VERDICT: There really isn’t too much wrong with The Lost Bear, it’s clearly just a little lost in all its VR gimmickry. This fairly typical 2D platformer doesn’t make much meaningful use of its virtual reality elements, most of them just being a step removed from something more effective and easier to manage. Still, the world and art of the game is lovely and the simple puzzles and action moments ensure the game is a fine enough playthrough albeit a short one. It’s a little fairy tale about a girl getting her favorite toy snatched by a strange creature, and with the right amount of child-friendly play to the adventure that isn’t too shallow for an adult to enjoy, The Lost Bear ends up passable despite its strangely superfluous VR elements.
And so, I give The Lost Bear for PlayStation 4…
An OKAY rating. The puppet show presentation is certainly something the developers put some care into. The environment around your spot in the audience is good looking enough, but it’s set dressing that doesn’t really add much to the game and the puzzle elements that pour out of it make it more like seeing a 4D movie rather than providing something that influences or impacts the game experience. However, even a 4D movie would do more to wow viewers with tactile elements, whereas The Lost Bear just seems to sometimes remember it’s in VR and adds in something that’s mildly amusing at best and not really more interesting than simple button presses at worst. Luckily, the 2D game you’re viewing on the odd stage is solid enough. It’s definitely kept low on the difficulty side of things to match its tale that seems taken from a child’s imagination, but its slingshot, the movement puzzles, and the action segments are just enough to make things move forward at a smooth pace that does keep you an involved participant rather than the passive viewer the VR elements paint you as.
Even if the virtual reality elements were taken out, The Lost Bear would be pretty much the same game, and that game is just okay. It’s cute at times, has some interesting designs for its metal monsters, keeps lightly adjusting the platforming and puzzles to prevent stagnation, but it never really goes beyond being a short and serviceable adventure. Perhaps the VR is here to give it more of an identity, to help it stand out since it’s not too exceptional in a world filled with 2D indie puzzle platformers, and perhaps any platform needs games that don’t embrace the hardware gimmicks too much but help fill out a library’s genre diversity, but The Lost Bear seems a little lost on what it wants to be.