Visual excellence fails to save poor execution shackled to a shallow and stagnant genre
I'll admit I had reservations about Playdead (Limbo, Inside) founder Dino Patti's new title Somerville from the start. But to be fair to Somerville, I've never enjoyed the cinematic platformer genre that Patti has been bound to his entire career as producer...but more on that later. It's more crucial to credit Somerville's actual (first time) writer and director, Chris Olsen, for the mess we have here.
Olsen, a CG animator turned director, has clearly mastered their own sense of visual aesthetic and direction--and I commend them for that. If nothing else, Somerville is (from a visual perspective) an incredibly well directed game. The lighting, shot composition, and color choices are par excellence for the entire experience. You really do get the feeling that Olsen spent years crafting the world of Somerville in his own head--using his years of artistic experience to fortify his ideas. Viewing this game on a large 4K TV was a nothing short of a visual treat that I wish more games could offer me without resorting to AAA level photorealism in titles like The Last of Us, Part II. In this sense, Olsen has totally nailed one of the most crucial aspects of the cinematic platformer, which earns Somerville some points.
Another World (Visual Art and Game)
Unfortunately for Olsen, games still have to be played...which is where Somerville quickly falls apart. For every strength I praised above, it often leads to one of the game's hapless weaknesses. Take for instance the shot composition. Somerville often features gorgeous wide shots that allow players to enjoy the scope of large environments. Unfortunately, you'll also often have to solve puzzles or perform tasks in these same shots, where it quickly becomes difficult to easily see where items or other interactive materials are. I frequently got stumped during puzzles not because I couldn't solve some logical question, but because I couldn't even see what I was supposed to be interacting with.
Beyond that, Somerville falls prey to the same core issue that plagues virtually every single cinematic platformer: they are cinematic to a fault. So many crucial game elements are ignored to preserve their cinematic quality. As a consequence, puzzles are vague, movement is awkward, and the narrative is minimalistic to avoid distracting text boxes or protracted voice acting. To many fans of the game, these drawbacks don't seem like much of a dealbreaker in light of just how fantastic the game looks. But let me ask you: if your game has unfun movement, confusing puzzle interactions, and barebones narrative...then what the hell is left in your puzzle platformer with heavy story emphasis? The answer, as we know it, is purely visuals and sound design.
Flashback (Close Encounters with [Bad] Minimal Narratives)
To be fair, minimalistic narratives aren't bad in their own right. However, Somerville misunderstands its own approach. Despite keeping a very lightweight narrative, it attempts heavy emotional twists in its 11th hour that fail to resonate because the game's story is so minimalistic. It's impossible to really understand or care about our characters because we spend so little time with them and have so little invested in their struggles. Naturally, the only trick the game has left is to boil down these struggles into one dimensional symbols like 'family' that can be cheaply resonated with despite lacking any meaningful elaboration on the topics at hand.
Even with the basic narrative theming Somerville has going for it, the game manages to blow it. Although the aliens approach is banal for cinematic platformers (Another World, Oddworld, Flashback, Heart of Darkness, etc.), many felt it fresh for the gaming environment of 2022. And even I'll admit, Somerville's opening--a casual countryside family hangout interrupted by alien invasion--is a great start to the game. McPherson Tape shenanigans aside though, Somerville spends most of its second act (a sizeable chunk of playtime) in an abandoned underground mine--bereft of any meaningful alien influence. Instead, players are left with repetitive environments and tedious puzzles that feel like filler to pad time between the more interesting first and third act.
Blackthorne (Christ, Hurry Up!)
Beyond narrative, the gameplay choices in Somerville are also often egregious. The player's movement speed is often swapped without any input from the player in order to suit the cinematic quality of the scene. As a consequence, you'll often go from a full sprint to a molasses pace without any understanding as to why. Although arbitrarily altering player control is bad as it is, the game will often fail to even be consistent in its own logic. Sometimes you'll be sprinting during a random no-stress puzzle and practically crawling while your life is on the line. No matter the situation, the lack of control is frustrating and textbook "how not to design movement" in a game centered around movement.
The puzzles also suffer from the same complaints you'll see strewn about most reviews. They often land either in 'braindead easy,' 'how was I supposed to even see that thing?' or the 'this is the stupidest shit I've ever seen' categories. Unfortunately, the puzzle sweet spot for cinematic platformers is, at least in my opinion, practically impossible to achieve by design--so Somerville is arguably no worse than other games, but it's certainly also no better either.
Heart of Darkness (Is There Anything Left For Cinematic Platforming?)
So what do I even mean by 'impossible' by design? And why do I have so many problems with this genre to begin with? Well for starters, beyond the raw innovations to platforming and pioneered by Jordan Mechner with Prince of Persia and narrative presentation by Éric Chahi with Another World, I'd say the cinematic platformer has failed to develop any new consistent ideas. As a consequence, the games are left to rely on their aesthetic values--to a fault. As graphics have progressed, the visual flairs that defined early cinematic platformers have been rendered irrelevant, which means that the games have had no choice but to lean in even harder on aesthetics.
As a consequence, we have titles obsessed with their hyper-minimal narratives and shallow gameplay all in the service of looking cinematic. Unfortunately directors like Olsen fail to understand that the incessant pursuit of cinematic immersion almost always comes at the cost of gameplay immersion. In order for the visual designer to preserve their high quality cinematography, players will be left fumbling around the screen spamming *X on every object they can (or can't) see in hopes it's that 'one thing' they need for their puzzle. In order for the designer to not remind you* that you're playing a game, players will redo the same life-or-death encounter twenty times while trying to guess what the hell they're supposed to do to survive. And, in order for a director to mimic their favorite movies, all good ludonarrative conventions are ignored in favor of twisting the player's arm to care about characters who they spend less time with than certain youtube ads.
I think, all in all, I despise the modern cinematic platformer more than almost any other genre (outside of inherently exploitive ones like gacha) because cinematic platformers are ashamed to be video games. They sacrifice crucial foundational gameplay decisions all in the pursuit of cheap artistic vanity. Early titles like Prince of Persia had the benefit of being technological showcases and (for the time) a breath of fresh air. But Limbo, and the horde of knockoffs it spawned have done nothing but encourage the creation of titles that make you press right on your thumbstick while being fed some of the most trite narratives you've ever seen--even if they look great while doing it.
Ironically enough, despite the genre (and Somerville's) aims, the cinematic platformer is like the cinematic equivalent of pointing a static camera at a stageplay: the story and acting might be great, but any movie director would tell you it's nothing but a waste of a film.
I'll admit I had reservations about Playdead (Limbo, Inside) founder Dino Patti's new title Somerville from the start. But to be fair to Somerville, I've never enjoyed the cinematic platformer genre that Patti has been bound to his entire career as producer...but more on that later. It's more crucial to credit Somerville's actual (first time) writer and director, Chris Olsen, for the mess we have here.
Olsen, a CG animator turned director, has clearly mastered their own sense of visual aesthetic and direction--and I commend them for that. If nothing else, Somerville is (from a visual perspective) an incredibly well directed game. The lighting, shot composition, and color choices are par excellence for the entire experience. You really do get the feeling that Olsen spent years crafting the world of Somerville in his own head--using his years of artistic experience to fortify his ideas. Viewing this game on a large 4K TV was a nothing short of a visual treat that I wish more games could offer me without resorting to AAA level photorealism in titles like The Last of Us, Part II. In this sense, Olsen has totally nailed one of the most crucial aspects of the cinematic platformer, which earns Somerville some points.
Another World (Visual Art and Game)
Unfortunately for Olsen, games still have to be played...which is where Somerville quickly falls apart. For every strength I praised above, it often leads to one of the game's hapless weaknesses. Take for instance the shot composition. Somerville often features gorgeous wide shots that allow players to enjoy the scope of large environments. Unfortunately, you'll also often have to solve puzzles or perform tasks in these same shots, where it quickly becomes difficult to easily see where items or other interactive materials are. I frequently got stumped during puzzles not because I couldn't solve some logical question, but because I couldn't even see what I was supposed to be interacting with.
Beyond that, Somerville falls prey to the same core issue that plagues virtually every single cinematic platformer: they are cinematic to a fault. So many crucial game elements are ignored to preserve their cinematic quality. As a consequence, puzzles are vague, movement is awkward, and the narrative is minimalistic to avoid distracting text boxes or protracted voice acting. To many fans of the game, these drawbacks don't seem like much of a dealbreaker in light of just how fantastic the game looks. But let me ask you: if your game has unfun movement, confusing puzzle interactions, and barebones narrative...then what the hell is left in your puzzle platformer with heavy story emphasis? The answer, as we know it, is purely visuals and sound design.
Flashback (Close Encounters with [Bad] Minimal Narratives)
To be fair, minimalistic narratives aren't bad in their own right. However, Somerville misunderstands its own approach. Despite keeping a very lightweight narrative, it attempts heavy emotional twists in its 11th hour that fail to resonate because the game's story is so minimalistic. It's impossible to really understand or care about our characters because we spend so little time with them and have so little invested in their struggles. Naturally, the only trick the game has left is to boil down these struggles into one dimensional symbols like 'family' that can be cheaply resonated with despite lacking any meaningful elaboration on the topics at hand.
Even with the basic narrative theming Somerville has going for it, the game manages to blow it. Although the aliens approach is banal for cinematic platformers (Another World, Oddworld, Flashback, Heart of Darkness, etc.), many felt it fresh for the gaming environment of 2022. And even I'll admit, Somerville's opening--a casual countryside family hangout interrupted by alien invasion--is a great start to the game. McPherson Tape shenanigans aside though, Somerville spends most of its second act (a sizeable chunk of playtime) in an abandoned underground mine--bereft of any meaningful alien influence. Instead, players are left with repetitive environments and tedious puzzles that feel like filler to pad time between the more interesting first and third act.
Blackthorne (Christ, Hurry Up!)
Beyond narrative, the gameplay choices in Somerville are also often egregious. The player's movement speed is often swapped without any input from the player in order to suit the cinematic quality of the scene. As a consequence, you'll often go from a full sprint to a molasses pace without any understanding as to why. Although arbitrarily altering player control is bad as it is, the game will often fail to even be consistent in its own logic. Sometimes you'll be sprinting during a random no-stress puzzle and practically crawling while your life is on the line. No matter the situation, the lack of control is frustrating and textbook "how not to design movement" in a game centered around movement.
The puzzles also suffer from the same complaints you'll see strewn about most reviews. They often land either in 'braindead easy,' 'how was I supposed to even see that thing?' or the 'this is the stupidest shit I've ever seen' categories. Unfortunately, the puzzle sweet spot for cinematic platformers is, at least in my opinion, practically impossible to achieve by design--so Somerville is arguably no worse than other games, but it's certainly also no better either.
Heart of Darkness (Is There Anything Left For Cinematic Platforming?)
So what do I even mean by 'impossible' by design? And why do I have so many problems with this genre to begin with? Well for starters, beyond the raw innovations to platforming and pioneered by Jordan Mechner with Prince of Persia and narrative presentation by Éric Chahi with Another World, I'd say the cinematic platformer has failed to develop any new consistent ideas. As a consequence, the games are left to rely on their aesthetic values--to a fault. As graphics have progressed, the visual flairs that defined early cinematic platformers have been rendered irrelevant, which means that the games have had no choice but to lean in even harder on aesthetics.
As a consequence, we have titles obsessed with their hyper-minimal narratives and shallow gameplay all in the service of looking cinematic. Unfortunately directors like Olsen fail to understand that the incessant pursuit of cinematic immersion almost always comes at the cost of gameplay immersion. In order for the visual designer to preserve their high quality cinematography, players will be left fumbling around the screen spamming *X on every object they can (or can't) see in hopes it's that 'one thing' they need for their puzzle. In order for the designer to not remind you* that you're playing a game, players will redo the same life-or-death encounter twenty times while trying to guess what the hell they're supposed to do to survive. And, in order for a director to mimic their favorite movies, all good ludonarrative conventions are ignored in favor of twisting the player's arm to care about characters who they spend less time with than certain youtube ads.
I think, all in all, I despise the modern cinematic platformer more than almost any other genre (outside of inherently exploitive ones like gacha) because cinematic platformers are ashamed to be video games. They sacrifice crucial foundational gameplay decisions all in the pursuit of cheap artistic vanity. Early titles like Prince of Persia had the benefit of being technological showcases and (for the time) a breath of fresh air. But Limbo, and the horde of knockoffs it spawned have done nothing but encourage the creation of titles that make you press right on your thumbstick while being fed some of the most trite narratives you've ever seen--even if they look great while doing it.
Ironically enough, despite the genre (and Somerville's) aims, the cinematic platformer is like the cinematic equivalent of pointing a static camera at a stageplay: the story and acting might be great, but any movie director would tell you it's nothing but a waste of a film.