Another full-motion title! This time we dive into being an … online detective of the sort, in which you dig through the post of the recently deceased. And to be a little more exact – your job is processing digital footprints of deceased people – all on behalf of the relatives. Sounds weird, right? Let’s get digging (not in a grave-robbery way).
Full Motion Video
Full Motion Video, a genre that was once very… special and interesting but fell out of grace at the end of the 90s. Any game that had that acronym on its box was considered archaic. FMV essentially meant live actors mixed with digital gameplay. This concept has never fully gone away, and it somehow has made its way back to the mainstream—though more as another trick of storytelling than any specific selling point – at least in the case of Jessika. We also played some games from Wales Interactive that gave the genre a new wind of sorts and granting the genre another chance to shine. But what’s wrong with Jessika, you ask? Well, it’s not meant for consoles.
Jessika
Jessika is an investigative adventure game. In it, you play as an employee of a data recovery firm attempting to reconstruct the events that led up to the suicide of the titular Jessika. The entire game is played from the perspective of someone sitting at a computer in a café, even with the ambiance of walking people and cars passing by in the street. The UI is simple and works like you would expect an (older) computer to. You receive e-mails and can interact with your coworkers and the client through a chat program. Most of the meat of the game is done through the investigation app. You type in different search terms, and videos or pictures appear. These videos usually contain clues in the form of keywords which you can then search for. Everyone that has ever done something in MS-DOS or the runtime program will feel right at home.
Gameplay
So – storytime; all you need is your laptop and some basic background info about the “victim” – in this case, it’s all about Jessika. Access her database and browse her files by typing different search terms. These will give you access to video clips, audio files, notes, and news articles. Share those with the client and your colleagues to dig even deeper. Use your savvy and combine the facts to unfold the true story of Jessika. If you know the right keywords, you unlock more videos – which are gated off until you trigger them. Some are super obvious; some are more obscure… Jessika gates off certain videos until you find specific keywords. This essentially sets up a pace for the game, and the story is told in a specific way. While the story unfolds, you find out that everything may not be quite as it seems—and someone is actively trying to get into your computer and stop you. This is represented by glitches and even a sequence where files are deleted until your coworker stops the attack. It ups the tension and intrigue, but it ends up adding a layer of annoyance.
Annoyances
Jessika has many things that annoyed me during the few hours it took me to play through it. Chatting and looking at e-mails is the worst. Sure, it’s all a neat setup and feels like working on an actual pc or laptop, but it quickly started to wear on me. By the end, I wouldn’t say I liked the chat sound. It was a shrill beacon of annoying dialogue and interruptions to my investigation. The glitches got out of hand, too. Sometimes it would minimize the video I’m watching or completely close all of the programs I had open. Once or twice would have been interesting, but it happens far too frequently. Who thought that was fun? Oh, and copying passwords, usernames, etc., might work on a PC with a keyboard and mouse; since it’s all about the copy-paste function. Imagine this on a console- where you drag along your cursor and press a certain combination on your Switch to copy – drag it to the textbox to paste. Sounds easy enough, right? But on a console, which triggers a textbox (like in the E-shop) when you try to copy information, with no actual option to paste… no, that doesn’t work! Irritation assured.
Language Barriers?
Most of the story is told through the videos that Jessika recorded. These are acted well enough, and you can listen to the audio in German or English. My German is good enough to understand most of it, but when I’m tired, I prefer English. Strangely, the English audio seemed to have a delay, and nothing she said was ever in sync with her lip movements (a little bit like how they dub Netflix shows these days). The actress who plays Jessika does a good job and has a pretty good range of emotions. She transforms throughout her story arc, and the actress even makes an almost physical transformation to reflect that. It’s too bad the story didn’t live up to her performance.
Jessika – Official Nintendo Switch Release Trailer – YouTube
Conclusion
The story of Jessika was compelling up until it wasn’t. Both the information presented and the way the whole story is build up fail to live up to the premise of the setting. It felt a bit hollow, and with ‘better’ games out there, Jessika is not one of the full-motion titles I will recommend to those interested in the genre. Combine this with the unhandy controls on the Nintendo Switch, and you can guess that my time with Jessika was less than fulfilling.
