If you’ve kept up with any of my reviews by now you should know I love a good story. I adore a game with great gameplay, good design, and innovative ideas but I very much appreciate it when a game goes out of its way to blend some sort of narrative with what it’s trying to do. Add some meaning to the long monotonous journey. That isn’t to say gameplay is bad. If you were to ask me which of two categories I prefer, gameplay or story, I’d say both. I believe the greatest titles in the market are the ones that strike a balance between both worlds. Aim to be expressive works of art that make you feel something through both the experience and what it’s telling you. I tend to remember and look back at these games more compared to something like your average shooter where you cut down wave upon wave of baddies, but feel nothing by the end of it. I know there are gonna be people who'll disagree with me, but that's my honest opinion and you can't change my view on things unless you held me at gunpoint. Narratives in games are great, and I think writers deserve more credit and respect than they get.
Despite my love for stories in games though I don’t often review games that are primarily story focused. I believe a story is best experienced with little to no knowledge of what it’s about going in. It not only gives the player a fresh mindset, but keeps them thoroughly engaged as the story unravels. It lets every peak, plot twist, and emotional moment land as they should. So it breaks my heart when someone I’m attempting to recommend a game ends up spoiling the plot. I’ve done it a few times, but never in extensive detail. Once you know the plot of a game and critical points in the narrative there aren’t many reasons to check it out. Why bother playing when you know what will happen, and working towards that point will be a waste of your time. That’s why when it comes to narrative explanations I keep them brief and focus on the rest of what makes a game great. Imagine how shocked I was when my mind decided the last game I should review before April ends is a game that primarily prioritizes story and is not very gameplay driven. A sequel to a game that I reviewed briefly before.
Finding Paradise is a narrative driven game made in RPG Maker and developed by independent studio Freebird Games. Who you may or may not know as the devs behind To The Moon one of the most well praised and recognizable RPG Maker titles out there. I reviewed To The Moon a long time ago in one of my Brief Looks collections for the exact reasons I described seconds ago. To let you all know, To The Moon is a game I very much appreciate. It’s not long and the puzzles are quite easy, but it being a narrative driven game hits what it wants to do right out of the park. A beautiful tale about life, the struggles it brings, the love you’ll gain, and living up to dreams. I gave that game an excellent score and am somewhat bummed out for not granting it anything a bit higher. It’s more than a decade old, has stood against the test of time, and you should really go out and play it seeing how it’s not very expensive and goes on sale often. After the success of To The Moon, the team at Freebird Games decided to make various smaller projects before they move onto their next major installment. A mini-episode set in the To The Moon universe, a short story following a boy and a bird called A Bird Story, and another mini-episode. Finally they got around to making the sequel Finding Paradise and it was released in late 2017. Connecting the plots of To The Moon and A Bird Story, and delivering a chunkier emotional narrative.
Finding Paradise was a success despite not selling as well as To The Moon. It had a much better narrative, felt more refined, and the team delivered a grander tale. I can see why it doesn’t have the same amount of recognition as To The Moon though. It’s hard to sell a sequel when it’s doing the exact same thing the first game did with little to no changes. Especially when it’s running on RPG Maker which a majority of gamers consider a limited engine. However, why fix what is broken? Plus there are games like God of War: Ragnarok and Dishonored 2 which are considered some of the greatest games ever made. I put off Finding Paradise for a while because I’ve been trying to review games worth discussing, and only checked it out as a downtime game. I adore this game. Finding Paradise is beautiful, is a perfect sequel, and has made me intrigued with the rest of Freebird’s catalog and any future projects they may have in store. Today we’ll be talking about why I love Finding Paradise and why it deserves your attention.
Story
In the near but somewhat distant future a company named Sigmund Corp created a machine that can alter a person’s memories. These machines could scan a person’s brain, download everything they ever experienced and memorized, alter it, and replace the memories they had. Allowing the users they were hooked up to experience the dreams they have. Instead of using these on living beings they decide to save it up for individuals who are about to die. Giving them what they want and letting them feel happy before they move on. They make a ton of money off of this yearly and hire the best scientists they can find to run these operations and carry them out successfully. The two scientists we follow for this journey are Eva Rosalene and Neil Watts. Eva is a stressed out workaholic who wants every job done perfectly so she doesn’t lose the only job she has, and Neil is a carefree nerd who adores his friend and attempts to throw some fun into their work. It's girlboss and male wife except they aren't married.
They’ve been assigned with taking care of a patient named Colin who is slowly dying of age just like their last major patient. They set up their equipment, enter Colin’s mind, and begin working through his memories from latest to earliest. Unlike Johnny whose dreams were very clear, the dreams of Colin are quite confusing. Colin wants to live a happy life, but make sure none of his major memories with his family are altered. The goal of Sigmund Corp is to alter memories and let their clients fulfill their dreams. This makes Eva and Neil’s job a bit harder as they must find out why Colin feels so troubled despite having such a normal life. This is made much worse as early on in the procedure something goes wrong. They start jumping between memories instead of going in reverse chronological order. They hop from latest to oldest back to latest meaning at some point they will converge to one particular memory. That memory could be the cause of all of Colin’s misery, so it’s their job to figure out what it is. Along the way they’ll learn about the entirety of Colin’s life, family, and those he grew up with.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Finding Paradise is very much similar to To The Moon but with some changes to the core puzzles you do throughout. You load into a memory or location, explore it, interact with all it has to offer, and then proceed. The only way to proceed deeper into a person’s memory is if you have enough memory fragments, and you gain those by interacting with core memories. You then find an object that links to another memory, break the shield around it using fragments, and do a quick and easy puzzle. The last game had you flipping panels until an image is shown, but in Finding Paradise you play what is basically connect four. You slide some orbs containing images around, match four or more in a row, watch them disappear, and see a meter fill up. This meter fills up when you connect four of the objects you interacted with, so trying to figure out how to do so is the challenge. A challenge that I’ll admit isn’t very hard if you know what you are doing or have played a crap load of mental thinking games that I had. Do that and progress with the story. Like I said, this is a very simple game to play. It’s always pushing you forward, there’s clear directions of what to do next to progress, and it’s easy to tell what objects you can and cannot interact with. Nothing much else to say. Hopefully you can uncover what exactly is troubling Colin, link it all together so that you may alter them, give him his wishes, and let him relive all that he went through.Â
Thoughts
Finding Paradise is a worthy sequel and I am surprised it has not garnished as much recognition as To The Moon. I ended up enjoying it more overall and the only downsides I can come up with are the core puzzles still being pretty easy and the game is basically a repeat of what made the first game great for a lot of folks. It is a narrative driven experience with not too much gameplay and a lot of dialogue. Most gamers want meaty gameplay, but sometimes it’s okay to be open to different kinds of games. Not every game needs to be a shooter much as a ton of folks argue to me that not every game needs Soulsborne levels of difficulty which I have realized in recent memory. It’s nice seeing video games go into different territories of art and expression, and Finding Paradise does exactly with its narrative and how it explores memories. I don’t think the puzzles were ever a priority of these games anyway. Some of these can be beaten without having to put in any thought which may seem laughable, but at the same time it would’ve been worse to throw in puzzles that take several minutes to figure out, have no consistency through design and feel, and break the pacing of the game.
One minor complaint I do want to make though is that this game feels much better to play with a controller or keyboard compared to a mouse. They try to give it and To The Moon point and click controls, and while it does work it can feel really finicky at times due to how this is RPG Maker and the characters can’t move in a diagonal direction apparently. Plus the cursor doesn’t always give you a good idea of where they’ll go and where they will stop. Besides that the entirety of this game is basically perfect. All the characters are likable with Eva and Neil being a wonderful duo to watch. The witty banters they have, their arguments, their friendship, and watching them unravel the truth each step of the way. Colin is an interesting patient more so than Johnny. What makes Colin more interesting in my opinion is figuring out what is wrong. I think it was obvious something was wrong with Johnny, but Colin is much harder to nail down. He has a good life for the most part surrounded by good friends and family. Sure he’s had some troubled moments, but he was still a good person nonetheless. Then you figure it out and I won’t spoil the twist, but it is a twist that hits you. It adds up like all good plot twists should and the way they resolve this huge plot twist is done super well. To The Moon resolved its plot twist really well too, but I feel like not everything added up perfectly for it. I think the logic behind it is a little weird and the usage of a specific drug doesn’t make sense when you look it up to see what it actually does. However, you’re not studying medicine and neither am I so I don’t even know why I’m saying this.
As for the themes of the story, Finding Paradise somewhat feels a retread of what made the first game great but better. Again, I shall mention this is in my humble opinion. These games are pure beauty because they explore what makes life so meaningful. There’s a lot that will hold us down in this world. Making enemies, poverty, the fear of failure, not living up to your dreams, and so many other things, Yet, we as human beings keep pushing through the troubles and doubts in the hope that things do get better. We experience Colin’s memories and see the many ups and downs he had growing up. I think the game flipping back and forth between old and new memories adds to this theme. For example, Colin hated learning the cello at a young age but overtime he grew to love this instrument and play wondrous songs with his wife. We get to see Colin make friends, fall in love, say goodbye to former friends, get a job, run a successful career, get married, retire, and so much more. There were moments where Colin felt doubtful, afraid, and lonely. Yet he overcame them and triumphed.
Without spoiling the story, because again that would remove the point of you trying out the game at all which I’d hate to do because the developers put so much love into it, one of the central themes is the fear of loneliness and abandonment. To not be able to see someone you once knew again, and never getting the chance to say goodbye when your or their time is up. To be left alone and have no one else to relate to or unload troubles you have each week. Meeting new people will be difficult and trying to leave a good impression on them so that they stay on your side will be harder. Life is gonna take you down weird roads, but at the end of the day seeing it through will be worth it. You’ll make friends, family, and be loved for who you are. There are flaws to life, but overcoming these flaws is what makes life beautiful. So in the end I’d say Finding Paradise is a must buy for anyone who likes well written stories. It has a beautiful story, impactful message, satisfying ending, and can be wrapped up within five hours meaning you can probably beat it within a weekend. It has quickly become one of my favorite RPG Maker games now, probably top five at least. It’s not gonna be for everyone and you need some knowledge of the first game to understand this one so I’d recommend playing To The Moon first. Finding Paradise is a heartwarming masterpiece, I strongly recommend it, and give it a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.Â
