Finding Frankie Review (minaxa)
I have very mixed thoughts about Finding Frankie.
I had high expectations, so maybe it's partly my own fault.
Here's what I think the game did wrong:
1. Despite having a pretty good PC, the game ran poorly, even when turning the graphics down a bit. Normally I wouldn't care much, but it really takes me out of the experience when my game briefly stutters every time (I assume) a new area loads in. IMO this is not something you want from a platformer where inputs need to feel smooth and deliberate.
2. I occasionally felt like I had no clue where I had to go to complete the objective I was given. I'm sure the intent of the developers was to encourage exploration of the map, but to me it just came off as frustratingly tedious, mostly in the second half of the game.
3. The depth of the gameplay itself ended up being a bit more shallow than I had hoped. I was excited at the idea of a platformer with a focus on movement, but IMO the movement was kinda clunky and not utilized to its fullest, hardly changing in depth or difficulty from the start to the end of the game. Overall, I think the game may have leaned a bit too hard into the Fall Guys inspiration.
4. The puzzles were okay at best, often a bit annoying despite their simplicity. I genuinely despised the section of the game where I needed to find 6 phones, though. I was probably stuck there for a good 15 minutes, and just straight up did not have fun.
Anyways, here's what I think the game did right:
1. Basically everything from an artistic standpoint was rather well done to me. The music, sets, and character designs were all good fun. I don't generally look forward to the visuals of games that strive towards realism, but I think this had the right amount of good direction/styliziation to still deliver a satisfying viewing experience.
2. I also really like that the narrative did not bother to waste any time trying to take itself seriously, as we've had plenty in the "mascot horror" genre try to do that already. It was certainly refreshing.
2. To its credit, there were a few spots where I was actually scared or unnerved. Kudos for that.
3. Although I complained about leaning too heavily into the Fall Guys inspiration a bit ago, I only did because I believe it was to the detriment of the gameplay depth. I did, however, still enjoy the hell out of seeing bits from Fall Guys sprinkled throughout the game. In general, the idea of basically taking Poppy Playtime and Fall Guys and mixing them together is a crazy combination that worked better than it had any right to.
Overall, pretty neat game that I can tell the developers put a lot of passion into, but it frustrated me way more than I wished it had. I'd probably give it like a 7.5/10. It's sad because I expected more, but I still recommend it.