Welcome to our review of Defoliation, a new dark point and click puzzle game on Nintendo Switch.
The young characters and the old woman, who met through an unfortunate accident, may not have had a good start, but they eventually open up and the youngsters end up visiting the woman at her house as friends.
One day, when they are headed to the old woman’s house as usual, they are suddenly hit by paramnesia. When they wake up, the woman’s house looks different to what they knew.
Under fear of being watched by someone, they begin their puzzle-solving journey for survival.
What are the secrets behind the eternal autumn leaves—the key to the game—and the missing schoolgirl?
Can these young characters make it through the game and make it back alive?
It all starts with searching the house. The player can solve puzzles or look for hints for solving them, by touching the screen or moving the mouse pointer to click on the places they want to search. There are various tricks in the house, and you can move forward as you solve the puzzles along the way. You can also master the use of items to increase the chance of discovering unexpected breakthroughs. Click the Hint Button when you are stuck. It may give you hints about what you may have missed in the screen.
But that is also where it goes wrong. The clues you are given, while cryptic in nature, might at times just not be helpful at all. I had one point in the second chapter where I was stuck, I ended up finding 4 parts, a map, … but no clear indication on what to do. It was so weird, I had to fill in an 8 digit code, but not a single hint of how it would work out.
I admit, I used a cheat online to find out the code. Even after knowing the code, it did not dawn on me what I had missed or did wrong. It just did not make sense.
While the story is something that will grab your attention, at all times throughout the game, you just feel like this game is a mobile game and does not fully belong on Nintendo Switch, at least not at the 10 euro price tag.
The graphics are your everyday anime styled point and click, nothing stands out really. I really felt more could have been done with the game. The hints could be improved or a way to get a clear indicator of what to do. Maybe even allow for a skip function, the game just felt too hard for just chapter 2. Despite having an easier chapter 3, really, I still feel this was a deal breaker for me.
In conclusion, a promising game on paper gets ruined by the lack of proper guidance and despite a great storyline, the defaults cannot save the game from being subpar.
My rating is 40%.
