A thought-provoking story with themes of loss and guilt | Full Review - The Wreck
✨Overview
The Wreck is a 3D interactive visual novel that plunges players into a world of complex emotions, family dynamics, and personal reflection. It was originally released on Steam and consoles early this year, but has now made its way to Android here on TapTap, offering players a chance to experience its narrative-driven journey on the go. You can play the first few parts of the story for free (roughly 20 minutes), then purchase access for the full version.
🟩Pros
+Compelling and profound narrative, after the initial slow crawl
+Great presentation and immersive soundtrack
+Quality voice acting and writing
🟥Cons
-Choices doesn’t feel like real choices and doesn’t matter, more like there for the sake of interaction only
-Forced interactivity sometimes takes you out of the immersion instead of immersing you
Immediately upon starting it, I can already sense the vibe that it's going to be a fantastic narrative-driven slice-of-life gaming experience, similar to past titles I've reviewed here on TapTap, such as Stray Gods and Road 96. While the soundtrack plays an impressive role in setting the mood, it does take a backseat once the game starts and for the majority of it, allowing the dialogue and character interactions to immerse players with ambient and white noise instead.
🎨Graphics
Visually, The Wreck makes a strong impression as a 3D visual novel. The style is a mix of cel-shaded, hand paint-like aesthetics and cartoons, while the cinematography adds depth to the storytelling, with its intriguing and “floaty” camera angles that create a unique atmosphere.
However, it's worth noting that the game doesn't fully animate its characters, which includes their lips during dialogue, which can sometimes leave the visuals feeling slightly static. They really are just 3D comic book panels with slight animated segments from time to time. Nevertheless, the overall quality of the graphics is decent, especially on a mobile device, which looks similar to the PC version.
📖Story
This game is a masterclass in being a narrative-driven experience. It explores themes of family, loss, acceptance, grief, and survival with complete groundedness. Personally, this hits right at home for me, as I have a similar thing that happened to me, so the emotional impact is magnified.
The game takes players on a journey through the protagonist Junon's life — a scriptwriter writing her literal own story, skillfully blending past, present, and future through recurring memories, flashbacks, and introspection. The storytelling is thought-provoking and emotionally charged, delving deep into themes of anger, guilt, and self-acceptance.
While players might initially find the pacing slow and the narrative structure disjointed, I encourage you to push through the first hour because once the story clicks into place, it becomes an unforgettable experience. It’s unfortunate that the free demo of this game, which includes the first twenty minutes of the story, is part of this initial slow crawl, potentially deterring would-be buyers from fully realizing this experience. Overall, the game will take 4-5 hours to finish.
The Wreck maintains an air of sophistication and class throughout its presentation. It doesn't shy away from tackling heavy subjects, and its portrayal of complex family relationships is both elaborate and realistic. The game's dedication to these themes is highly commendable, albeit admitted it's not going to be a popular topic for many just looking for a fun game to play.
The character development is exceptional, especially if you’re counting the entirety of the story including the recurring memories, retrospects, and flashbacks; however, I personally found the main character a bit annoying at first. This isn't a reflection of the writing quality, but rather her personality and the way she was portrayed. Of course, I was only judging her based on my first few impressions.
🎮Gameplay
The Wreck offers a familiar but still fresh take on gameplay within the visual novel genre. Players interact with the story by occasionally tapping the screen to select words or objects to progress the scene. While this approach is refreshing, the game remains relatively linear, often feeling more like an interactive movie than a traditional game. Nonetheless, the game offers enough interaction and mechanics beyond the typical “choose your dialogue option”. However, it is a bit jarring to stare at the screen, listen to the dialogue, and totally get caught off guard by the sudden need to tap the screen again because I was so focused on the dialogue. This frequent interruption can disrupt the pacing of the conversations.
The game is FULL of dialogue, and as said earlier every few seconds you are asked to choose a word floating on screen to continue. Sometimes there is a whole metaphysical memory-like scene presented to you that flows on both sides and loops infinitely, you can either rewind the scene and forward it, and interact on fuzzy floating words that will come out to gain more insight about the character’s thoughts and memories. This mechanic, while novel, can occasionally feel frustrating when crucial words are easily missed and the words appear throughout the scene in seemingly chaotic order.
While The Wreck offers the illusion of choice with multiple words to select in dialogues, it doesn't significantly impact the overall narrative direction. The game's linearity may disappoint those seeking branching storylines and lots of ending permutations. However, the story's emotional impact and the high standard of voice acting compensate for the limited interactivity and branches.
⚖️Conclusion
The Wreck is a game that delves deep into the human experience, offering a profound narrative journey that explores serious and depressing themes in people’s daily lives, and will surely resonate with those who had such experiences. Its storytelling is its greatest strength, and perhaps its one and only strength, immersing players in a world of complex emotions and family dynamics. It’s not really a “fun” video game that you will enjoy per se, or something that can entertain you on-the-go, it is rather a narrative experience for those who won't mind a darker, thought-provoking story.
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