Lost Words: Beyond the Page (Xbox One)
Writing can serve as a therapeutic way of working through complex emotions, be it through simple reflections in a journal or grappling with broader concepts through creative works. Lost Words: Beyond the Page uses this as the core of its narrative, a young girl working her way through complex and heavy emotions by way of the written word, but it isn’t just a device for story-telling here. Here the words will also literally help you make progress and overcome obstacles, not only because some of these words work almost like abilities, but sometimes they make up the actual ground you stand on.
Lost Words: Beyond the Page begins with a young girl named Izzy getting a new journal from her beloved Gran, starting to write it in with reflections on her life. Early in the game this is a nice way to get to know the young protagonist and set up her key relationships, the voice actress, Sidonie Maria Šakālis, doing a superb job at bringing the character to life, especially as things start to take a quick turn towards heavier subjects. Izzy goes from simply recording details of her life in her journal to describing the particularly emotional moments surrounding a heartbreaking personal loss. Trying to comprehend such an unexpected event in her life, grappling with feelings of helplessness, working through her anger and grief, it all comes out on the pages of the journal, a fairly realistic progression unfolding without it trying to stick to some standard story structure. At the same time though, Izzy had just started writing a fantastical tale about a land called Estoria with the journal right before things take a turn for the worse in her real life. Inevitably, some of the painful emotions she’s trying to work through end up influencing this story whenever she returns to it, but it’s not in a one-to-one manner.
The tale going on in Estoria isn’t merely just her real life through a lens of the fantastic. There are points in the story where the character, one clearly based on Izzy, will encounter her own forms of grief and loss, try to make sense of conflicting emotions that aren’t always adjacent to what is happening in real life, and there can even be moments where the written word tries to arrive to a mature resolution to an emotional topic but it doesn’t quite help the writer overcome the emotion in the same way or prepare her for unexpected complications. Estoria’s main tale is about a quest undertaken by a young girl when her village is attacked by a dragon, scattering the magical fireflies who had helped protect it for years. While Izzy’s emotional state is the only thing in jeopardy out in reality, Estoria allows for difficult concepts to take shape as actual obstacles, the intersections between the two narratives more poignant because they’ll diverge but still come together at times so that they can explore the thematic elements of the story better. The adjustments one undergoes when their life is disrupted, the difficulty in controlling one’s emotional state, and dealing with consequences and coming to terms with certain immutable facts of life all play a part in this mature tale told through the eyes of a girl who has much growing to do and her created character who must grow into her role as a hero.
The emotional heart of the story is definitely where Lost Words: Beyond the Page is the strongest, but its artistic elements are remarkably well-received complements. Chapters in the game’s story are split into two segments, with one having Izzy writing in her journal and the other half cataloguing the ongoing adventure in Estoria to catch the dragon. The journal writing segments actually have you view the journal spread open on the table, words appearing in it as Izzy narrates each new bit of text as it appears. However, rather than simply sticking to the lines, the words will appear all about the page, the player navigating a small illustrated girl who needs to hop from sentence fragment to sentence fragment to keep the writing going. Sometimes colorful asterisks will appear you can grab to make small side thoughts on subjects appear, but where at first these words are simply objects to jump across, soon the game starts to get a bit more creative. Words can serve useful purposes as Izzy also enjoys illustrating the pages, so when something like a birthday cake appears with a few candles to blow out, you are invited to actually grab the word “blow” with an on-screen cursor and drag it towards the flames. Most of these actions are more novelties than challenges, but what makes these segments more than just a lightly interactive way to hear Izzy’s thoughts are the moments where the imagery and word use really gets creative. If Izzy is angry she can scrawl across the pages in a frenzy, when she’s confused she’ll create word platforms you fall through because they’re spoken without certainty, and at certain points the asterisks you can grab will instead be niggling worries that she tried to avoid transcribing until you were forced to touch them to progress. Legitimately beautiful illustrations or imaginative uses of words as changing ground make this section a worthy part of the experience despite it never really being difficult to complete, the showcase both of how Izzy is feeling and how that can be put to page almost captivating enough to work as a game concept on its own.
However, such a game concept would be closer to a narrative exploration game, and Lost Words: Beyond the Page does actually try to mix in a bit of puzzle-solving and light platforming challenges over in its Estoria segments. Once Izzy begins to write about this fantasy realm, you’ll be taken to a more traditional game space where a clear on-screen character runs through more natural environments. These segments aren’t entirely disconnected, Izzy still providing the voice of the heroine and narrating different parts of the plot, and at specific points in the story you will also get to have a hand in creating the tale. In fact, the main heroine has three different possible names and can dress in different colors based on your choices, and later when you do things like encounter a lonesome djinn out in a desert, you are able to choose the reason why he is trying to expel you from the ruins and how you end up dealing with his issues. The fact the game even asks these questions ties into Izzy’s own issues with trying to seize control of her life with some of the moments where she hits a point where you need to decide the next words essentially asking how you think she should try to press forward with the subject at hand. While perhaps not always the most coherent narrative in itself because of Izzy’s mental state bleeding into her writing, there are still moments in the plot of the story character that work as standalone ideas exploring a concept and the fact it isn’t always directly connecting to the writer’s current worries allows those moments to work a bit better and have some emotional impact themselves rather than always being some blatant metaphor that connects too closely to Izzy’s real life.
The puzzle-solving during these segments isn’t quite that difficult though. While exploring Estoria you will learn words of magic kept in a book you can pull up any time. Some words are temporary while others stick around across the different chapters, the player plucking the words out of their book to drag onto an object they wish to influence. You will find yourself using Rise to make an object move upwards, Repair to fix bridges, and Break to smash through rocks in many moments that don’t require any real thought besides recognizing it’s time to whip out the word. Things do get a bit more involved as you make it deeper into the story with the player sometimes asked to do a few steps in a row to progress, but often it is a case of spotting something ahead that requires a word, using that word, and continuing onward. On occasion a more unique application might pop up for a word or it might be a more thematic idea like the word Hope being used as a light source in the dark, and the magic words are often more interesting when they’re not just a straightforward navigation aid since you’re at least thinking of how they relate to the point you’re at in the plot.
Fireflies are hidden around many stages to give you something to search for though, these requiring a bit more effort to reach usually but still not to the degree that this game is going to really test your wits. There is definitely a greater focus on continuing the plot over providing compelling gameplay and thankfully the story-telling is there to hold your interest, the world within the story sometimes taking on some interesting shapes like an emotional writer’s block making it hard for the usually vivid backdrops to form. This side-scrolling puzzle platformer is mostly trying to keep you lightly engaged with its interactive element while your true focus should be on the narration that explores the core themes both explicitly and with symbolic moments, but it’s not totally empty so you can find a few moments where you do need to work a little to make progress.
THE VERDICT: The gameplay in Lost Words: Beyond the Page isn’t really there to test the player’s skill or puzzle-solving. Instead, it is a complementary piece of a wonderfully told story about a girl working through unexpected grief in a believable and well-realized manner while also using some creative writing as a coping mechanism. The writing in the journal sections is creatively distributed and reactive while Izzy’s vocal narration sells every emotional expertly, and over in the land of Estoria a congruent but not overly restricted exploration of dealing with loss is able to provide a compelling new lens to the subject. The interactivity is more a mood setter and means of engaging with a tale, but extra elements like customizing certain parts of the plot still make you feel like part of the story rather than an observer passively hopping between the words.
And so, I give Lost Words: Beyond the Page for Xbox One…
A GREAT rating. Considering how much of the focus in the game is on the writing in this journal, it is not too surprising that the well-written story is what the player should come to the game for. The puzzle-solving doesn’t get ambitious or difficult enough but that’s because it would impede the story if you got stumped in an area, emotional adversity the real challenge rather than some tangible obstacle or trial. Izzy’s emotional journey is believable but thankfully not formulaic, brushing against the stages of grief at times but still charting its own course and not forcing itself to restrict the reality since such things are rarely so easily segmented into a procession of predetermined emotions. Importantly, the game begins with a pretty cheery period to get to know Izzy and her life, and even as she starts to experience more negative emotions you aren’t just mired in her dark moods. In fact, Estoria can often be a good counterbalance to this as Izzy tries to find a hopeful path forward through her fairly blatant self-insert, often making some emotional progress by tackling topics in a more controlled situation but still needing to work through them out in the real world afterwards. The imaginative intersection of what’s being said and what can unfold in the journal’s words or the fantasy scenarios keeps Lost Words: Beyond the Page aesthetically intriguing as well and the narrative more exciting to follow along with even as you feel some sympathetic emotional pain for the poor protagonist. It certainly does feel like Lost Words: Beyond the Page could have survived a full commitment to the narrative and removed some of the moments where you’re pushing past some fairly easy hazards, but at the same time some light interactivity pushes it close to the appeal of a fantastic game Wandersong since both games do emphasize that the degree of control over your fate as a part of their message.
The excellently told story is why you should come to Lost Words: Beyond the Page. It has more to say than some similar and straightforward evaluations of loss and views it from unique angles thanks to the different ways the gameplay intersects with it. The journal can only hold what Izzy writes in it and you are literally clinging to her every word as she gives vital details on her situations and how her emotional state is progressing. Estoria being a congruent tale rather than just Izzy’s life with fantasy trappings placed on it also means it can attack different subjects at different stages in the story, things feeling connected but not lost in reiteration or dwelling on simple ideas about how people might handle sadness or anger. Beautiful and charming at times and heart-breaking at others, the side-scrolling action shouldn’t be looked at as a weak part of the experience but rather how you ride along with this story, level staging sometimes as emotionally evocative as the excellent art and voicework.