The Unfinished Swan Review (PS3)

      If you've been following along, I've been doing a series of reviews of on puzzle platformers. I started with Quantum Conundrum, then did Where is My Heart?, then Closure (the first game I've given a perfect score on this site). The last entry is The Unfinished Swan. Look out next week for my comparison of all four games, and my Closure spoiler post.

     But this week, it's all about The Unfinished Swan. It's that game you may have heard about where you play in a totally white space that you unveil by throwing paint. That's actually just a small part of what goes on in the game.

     And because, for me anyway, doing new and surprising things (some of which you've never done anything like before) is what The Unfinished Swan is all about, I'm not going to talk too much about what its levels are like. I'm not even going to discuss the game's second concept, which is readily shown to the public. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend not looking at it. Seeing the stuff The Unfinished Swan has you doing for the first time without knowing beforehand is really where the game's magic is. Each new idea that it drops you into is like a playground. Getting to run around and play with the new mechanics it gives you and discovering them by doing rather than hearing about it or watching a video is a magical experience I would not deprive you of.

     You play as Monroe, a boy whose story is told to you through storybook style cutscenes at the beginning of each level. His mother, who recently passed away, was an artist who never quite finished her paintings. A painting of an unfinished swan is the only painting he still has. When the swan goes missing one night, Monroe follows its footprints into a magical story book land. He pursues the swan, following its golden footprints and an occasional glimpse of the swan itself. The swan is huge and majestic, and each time you see it is a treat. It's also crazy looking, as the unfinished part of it is the middle of its neck; it's head is just kind of floating out there. It's heart-wrenching to see the huge bird in the distance, hear Monroe call out for it, and then to watch it fly off.

     You'll also be unveiling the story of the kingdom you have entered in pursuit of the swan. It's the tale of an egotistical king who creates his kingdom through painting and the trials and tribulations he faces in his kingdom and his personal life. You'll reveal these story parts by finding a letter in the environment. When you throw something at it, it reveals a story book picture and words that the narrator then reads to you.

The game has simple controls. Much like Quantum Conundrum, it is a first person puzzle platformer (of sorts). The left stick is move and the right is look. Cross is jump. R1, R2, L1, and L2 all do the same thing: throw something. In each level, this may be a different thing. In the main level shown to the public, it is ink balls. But you will be throwing a handful of other things as well throughout the game's levels.

     Since I'm not going to talk about that other stuff you'll be throwing and the cool stuff it does, I'll talk about throwing ink balls. The first level is all about this idea. You start in a totally white room with zero contrast. You can't see a thing. The screen looks exactly the same no matter where you look or how fast you look. You can't even tell if you are moving or looking around or not; the screen is always pure white. That starts to change when you throw an ink ball and it splats on the floor or a wall. You now have a point of reference. You can tell if you're moving or standing still. As you keep throwing, you define the space little by little until you can finally do some rudimentary navigation. Soon you're on your way, stumbling through the landscape you reveal little by little. You can throw ink one ball at a time and just get a glimpse of where you are. Alternately, you can mash on the throw button and splatter a whole wall or floor as you go, it's all up to you.

And it's not just blocky rooms you'll be splatting. You'll go through forests, bridges, statue gardens, and stairs. You'll be splatting trees, benches, wooden planks, and even animals. These levels do a great job of setting you up on spots where you can look back and see the trail you've blazed in ink behind you, be it a few little drops or a wash of the whole area. You'll soon realize that you are not really painting the area so that you can see it, but creating contrast between white and black. If you paint too much, the environment becomes invisible again as objects become black with a black background. You can only see when there is some white and some black.

     The ink blots look amazing and function really well. They splat in crazy patterns, and even realistically go through objects like the wooden backers on a bench or the rails of a fence; only partial splotches make it through to the other side. They make a satisfying “splat” sound effect too.

     As for the other mechanics you'll be using, all I'm going to say is that two of them are quite cool, and the third is downright awesome. You'll be playing around with all of them quite a bit just to see what you can do.

The wonder of the game's levels is not all about these mechanics either. Just walking through the grand levels with nothing else to do would have been pretty cool in itself. There's a lot of cool stuff to see. A lot of the levels are surprisingly large and have a huge sense of scale. In particular, the mind-boggling-ly huge labyrinth in one scene is dizzying when you see it sprawled out in front of you from on high. There are a few other really amazing sights to see as well as you travel through. The game's last level is particularly wondrous, and held my rapt attention all the way through to the end. There's also this really amazing thing in this one level that is really crazy. My lips are sealed though, just know there's a bunch of cool stuff in the game.

     Luckily, there are puzzles to solve as you go through. To get through a level, you always just need to get to the end of it. What you need to do to get there is not usually difficult at it all. The difficulty is usually just a few ticks up from walking from point A to point B. You have to use whatever mechanics the level is based on to get there, and while you won't instantly figure out what to do each time, it usually won't take more than a few minutes before you are through to the next area of the level.

     Some levels are mostly without music. Others have some appropriate tunes, such as a royal theme in the interior castle-like levels. Others just have ambient sound, such as frogs and crickets in the distance. In fact, when I went to bed after writing this, the real nighttime sounds around my house of frogs croaking and bugs chirping sounded almost exactly like what is in some levels of the game.

     There are “toys” you can unlock by finding balloons in the levels. Some of these are obvious, others more hidden away. There are all fun to track down. The harder ones are still fun because you can unlock a balloon radar that helps get you close to them if you are having trouble (although I recommend going without it until you get really stuck). The toys are fun, and usable even as you are playing through the campaign. The cheapest one that you can unlock almost immediately lets you freeze time for anything you've thrown. It's great fun to freeze time, throw a bunch of ink, (which will float in the air in front of you) then unfreeze and let it all go flying and splat at the same time. There's also a sniper mode and rapid fire to unlock, along with concept art and even a prototype level (which has some really cool stuff in it, make sure to play it).

     The downside is that the game is short. Really short. It'll only be a few hours before you are through, and then just a little more time until you grab all the balloons and miscellaneous trophies (one trophy has you go through one of the white levels while only using three ink balls! You'll probably need a guide to do it like I did. It's a very interesting, and disorienting, experience). It's so short, I'd say $15 is a bit too steep for it. I got it on a Playstation Plus sale for about $7. That's about the perfect price for it in my book. What's there is great, but it's short. I could have gone for a few more levels, or even double the amount of levels or more if they were able to keep the new mechanics coming. Of course, that's easier said than done, and since all these levels and mechanics are pulled off without a hitch, maybe it was wise to stop before something got put in the game that didn't work so well. As it is, the game is short, but the whole experience is sublime.

     Part of that sublime feeling comes from the low difficulty. I enjoyed the low difficulty as just walking through the levels, playing with the mechanics, and then using them to get out was a blast. In my last three reviews I've mentioned how those games were great puzzle platformers because they challenged you without frustrating you (or just bareley frustrating you before you get the answer). They each attained a great balance of challenge and accomplishment. The Unfinished Swan does not have that going on. It manages to work and be fun without a high difficulty. I still could have gone for maybe a handful of harder areas. I did enjoy it as it is though. It doesn't put limits on you. You are free to play around mostly without consequences. While the other puzzle platformers I reviewed (Quantum Conundrum, Where is My Heart?, and Closure) took gameplay mechanics and ingeniously iterated them into more and more new and difficult puzzles, The Unfinished Swan never works with its mechanics long enough to get a truly challenging situation going. Instead it takes you through an idea up to a moderate difficulty and then moves you onto something entirely new. That's good, because it constantly has you doing new and exciting things. It's also bad because there is no sense of accomplishment from doing something that truly stumped you for awhile. Don't get me wrong, the game isn't a total cakewalk. You'll have to puzzle out what to do in many situations throughout. You'll just never be happily stuck on a super challenging puzzle that you eventually solve in an epiphany of discovery like you often do in those three other games. The Unfinished Swan is a lot different than them; it's all about seeing new things instead of challenge and accomplishment. It's an unfair comparison in a way, as I feel that The Unfinished Swan wasn't shooting for hard puzzles, it's more about exploring in unique ways, traveling in unique ways, and seeing the world in unique ways. I probably shouldn't even call it a puzzle platformer. It's more like... an experiential exploration game. It wants you to play around, not be stuck. I hope that makes sense.

     The story isn't as good as it seems like it's going to be. It's interesting. It's good. It's not as touching as it thinks it is though. Something's a little off with it.

     Bottom line is I highly recommend The Unfinished Swan. Its whole point is to show you new and amazing stuff, and it is a royal success. Some of this stuff is unlike anything you've ever played before, and it's all worth seeing. I'm wrestling with whether to give it tier 2 or tier 3 in the great game category. For comparison's sake, it's definitely not as good as Where is My Heart?, which is tier 2. I probably enjoyed it slightly more than Quantum Conundrum, which is tier 3. Hmmm. I could go either way. I'll say great game, tier 2.