Story of Abandoned School Switch Review
| Game: | Story of Abandoned School |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | VG Games |
| Developer: |
It bodes well for a game when the title is grammatically incorrect. Even more so when said game has only been out less than 14 days and is already on offer at a 90% discount. But once you start playing Story of Abandoned School, you’ll understand why.
You take control of an unnamed male protagonist and find yourself in the very white grounds of an old–and abandoned–school. On opening the game gives Silent Hill vibes, but without the budget, instead opting for a paper white environment with 3D black objects and a fog effect. Colour is left for the main parts of the game environment, that being the school.
Gameplay is as simple as it comes: enter a room, find notes and/or a key for another room, head to said room, get the next key and so on. Early on finding keys feels very lazy, simply walking into a room, picking up a key, then literally walking right next door to the nearest door to unlock it, rinse and repeat. And when you pick up keys they are not even displayed on-screen to show you have them. At times I would forget which key I had, but there is no way for you to check where it should go. At one point you also receive a map that you can’t even look at again. Good luck if you miss looking at it first time, not that environments are large enough to get lost in anyway. There isn’t anything in the way of puzzles, and this game could certainly have added one or two given that most of the game is devoid of anything other than school-related 3D objects, such as chairs and tables, and some gore. The school itself is very boring and repetitive to explore.
As well as the exploration, there’s also some combat, though don’t expect anything substantial here: the protagonist carries a blade and swings it so slow it wouldn’t cut through butter. Combat of course implies there are enemies and when confronting one it really is pathetic. Attacks are slow and enemies go down within three hits. Sure, they’ll manage to get a strike or two in as well, but there’s no strategy to the combat, just simply swing your blade until they go down. I even managed to defeat one in a doorway, but then its body blocked the way and I ended up having to start the game all over again as there was no way to get around it.
Your character has a health and stamina meter. You can pick up only one health kit in the game, but it’s not even needed as, as already mentioned, enemies go down like a popped balloon and health regenerates anyway. There’s also very few enemies to worry about, so it’s not as though you’ll have to be constantly managing your health and stamina. As for stamina, you’d think it would be used to run from enemies, but it is mostly used for faster exploration: stamina isn’t even depleted when you swing your weapon.
The game can also be very laggy and glitchy, with a lot of popup that gives Sonic Frontiers a run for its money. It also has cheap jump scares, the type where a character model will flash on screen for a few milliseconds with a loud sound. True, it catches you off guard, but the jump scares don’t feel earned at all. There’s no atmosphere, no suspense: you simply begin waiting for the next scare, and when there is one there is never any payoff. No chase, no combat.
As for the story, you’ll likely guess right from the start what is going on once you read the notes dotted about. One positive though is that the ending (which you’ll see in barely over an hour) is definitely unexpected, even if unintentionally bewildering.
I am no game designer, but it is frustrating when designers create a game and clearly put no thought into at all. There’s no innovation here and the game overall feels very lazy and empty: you can definitely play other games that have more to offer. At the time of writing (May 2nd 2023) Story of Abandoned School is currently priced at the paltry sum of 99p on the Nintendo eShop, but is due to rise to its normal price of £9.99 on May 6th, so if you really must play it, you should purchase it now.
