Contact plays like Akira Ueda’s previous Shining Soul series, but with a bulkier, clumsier MMO combat system and a truly bizarre premise: the player as a middleman and liaison between a cutesy, pixelated space scientist on the run and Terry, a normal modern-day boy thrown into the mix a la Secret of Evermore.

Unfortunately, the game is littered with pointless skill systems, necessitates an outrageous amount of grind, and, disappointingly, its trademark contrast between the three parties goes nowhere, serving no meaningful thematic or mechanical function. Contact wants to subvert and confuse like Earthbound, but it lacks the focus, polish, and purpose.