Thanks to ARC SYSTEM WORKS for the review code
Title: The MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $29.99
Release Date: 10/11/2018
Story
In this story-driven puzzle platformer, you take control of J.J Macfield, who goes out with her friend Emily to a strange island for a vacation, only for things to turn very dark and wrong real quickly. So much so that she quickly dies, only to realize she’s somehow able to keep going even as parts of her body become injured or outright decapitated.
Yeah, The Missing does not play around, and makes that clear from the get-go with strong content warnings. Back in 2018 I thought I was in the good headspace for this, only to be caught off guard by the sheer brutality of the game. Still, it had cool enough ideas that I pushed a bit ahead of it, before getting back to the other games in my queue.
Then well, I lost a best friend and the queue derail began, and I really didn’t want to play this game with that headspace, so there The Missing went, at the bottom of my queue for years and years, with each attempt at me picking it back up again making me realize why I felt so uneasy playing it, despite the plot becoming increasingly more interesting and well written enough to give me motivation to try and keep going on.
Now here we are; a month after, and I’m not exaggerating or making this up for the review, I had my first major suicidal thought since 2011. The game warns you upfront about the themes it offers, but also notes that it still is a story meant to teach how you should be proud of yourself, no matter what feel like you want to be.
Honestly? Despite my recent anxieties, I ended up somewhat appreciating what The Missing was going for, even if I did have to force myself to stop midway through the game for the sake of seeing something I had a good feeling was going to happen. (and then confirming later that indeed, it did happen) The story isn’t completely told to you up front, and as you collect donuts scattered throughout the chapters, you get new tidbits of text conversations that were conducted before the duo arrived at the island, which is where the bulk of the heavy, indirect themes come into play.
Those texts are a pretty good incentive for getting all the collectibles, at the very least, but that doesn’t mean the game itself doesn’t get darker as you approach the core of the Island, either, and for those who can deal with it better than I could, you’ll find a surprisingly powerful message here.
Presentation
The Missing has a presentation that feels like it should look great, but unfortunately doesn’t turn out so hot here on Switch. In handheld mode, the game is pretty jagged looking, and a lot of the scenery looks pretty dull. Docked mode looks better, but the game isn’t really a looker either. That isn’t too much of an issue for me personally, but you may just prefer to play this on another console if that will bug you.
The audio at least is better, with decent tunes and ambience, and pretty solid voice acting, which helps with telling the story on offer here. One of the sound effects glitched on me and repeated itself when it shouldn’t have, but dying fixed that up pretty quickly.
Gameplay
The Missing is, at its core, a puzzle platformer, with the main goal being to clear each chapter and area within by using J.J’s new powers to progress deeper and deeper into the island. Oddly enough, the first obstacle that’ll take some getting used to is how this Switch port still uses the B button to confirm and A to back out, akin to how it would be on a Steam/PS4/Xbox. You can remap the functions of the in-game actions, but not the confirm/cancel, meaning you’ll have to fix this via the system or just deal with it before getting into The Missing.
Still, once I got back into the game and reacquainted myself with earlier chapters, I found the game to be rather simple to control. You can move, jump, and interact with objects that come in your way, and use J.J’s gruesome reincarnation abilities to help get around obstacles, whether that involves getting her legs severed to throw them at a barrel to knock it out of the way, or snapping her neck to invert gravity, among several other very, very gruesome means.
While just focusing on the main paths could get you to the end of the chapter faster than going off the beaten path, the chapters do have collectibles worth getting in the form of Donuts, which unlock those very crucial story relevant texts I pointed out earlier. There’s also the fact that even if you try to rush through, the puzzles will ultimately be the biggest challenge for JJ, rather than dealing with enemies.
Oh, there are still enemies alright, along with several tense situations requiring proper timing, but the puzzles in The Missing are surprisingly clever, even early on in the game, and they just get more and more tricky the further you make it. Just because J.J can’t die by normal means, doesn’t mean there won’t things that’ll still end her, and there are still instances of bricking yourself and needing to go back to the last checkpoint if you screw up badly.
Regardless, this Switch version is still the last version I’d recommend. It plays fine enough, and the controls didn’t really bother me despite the framerate feeling a little weird, but I had a couple of crash bugs show up during my playtime, mostly when it came to navigating menus. The game autosaves pretty often thankfully, and most of the crashes came from the config menus rather than the in-game ones. Not too frequent of an issue to be a game ending one if you only have the means to play on Switch, but I have to hope/assume the game doesn’t act up like this on other consoles. That and it’ll just naturally look/run better.
Conclusion
Ultimately, The Missing might just be one of the hardest games I’ve ever had to cover for SFG. Not just due to the absurd delay it has had as part of my Legacy Review Queue, but due to themes that have never been easy for me to deal with no matter how many times I’d buckle down and dive into the game again.
Well, I got it in me to finally push ahead enough to see the game for what it was, and how the gameplay felt, and ultimately, I think The Missing ends up being an OK game with an ambitious story that will really resonate with some people and not resonate or unnerve others. The puzzles are pretty darn solid, and the story does have really good strengths that’ll resonate for those willing to deal with the gruesome content, but make no mistake, if this sounds like it might make you squeamish or give you agony, don’t hesitate to pass on it.
Regardless of how the execution (or Switch performance/bugs) turned out in the end, I do think the core message of the game remains forever true, especially in times like these; do not be afraid to be who you are. This may be a pricey game when at MSRP, but I feel the message and character writing still makes the game worth picking up if you’re able to handle the themes presented here. (It also helps it goes on sale pretty often) Ended up not being for me, but I still couldn’t help but admire Swery’s work here regardless.
I give The MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories a 6 out of 10.