Fading Afternoon Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "A powerful game… for some" ⛅️ @shin_yeo #IndieGameDev #GameDev #IndieGame

Fading Afternoon was an oddly tough game to review because its unique blend of genres - life simulation & 2D brawling – and its player-driven gameplay (as opposed to narratively driven) can lead to a sense of aimless meandering as much as it can seem a deep and powerful experience.

Unfortunately, whilst I can see that this was a real underdog gem for some, I didn’t connect with the game in the same way some folks did, which was a shame. That said, I still found Fading Afternoon to be a memorable experience, clearly created by a developer that follows their vision, which is always something that I appreciate and fully support.

The game begins with the protagonist being released from prison, a middle-aged ex-Yakuza member, Seiji Maruyama meets with an old colleague and settles into life post-incarceration. Each day allows you to visit a set number of locations on the map, where you can interact with various folks and do anything from dating through to kicking off a gang war.

This is all presented through a wonderfully detailed 2D world, rich with little aural touches and some evocative music. The details of this pixel world also translate to the controls, which are full of tiny flourishes such as smoking a cigarette, mechanics which don’t particularly add to moving the plot forward but allow you to get more invested in Seiji’s world and situation.

This is what makes the game quite unique, there’s a slow sense of pacing, and it is designed for the player to drink in each step of Seiji’s journey; smoke a cigarette, lean on a rail and listen to the music as time goes by. If, however, this lackadaisical approach doesn’t gel with you – it makes the game feel quite basic and almost too casual to be engrossing. This is unfortunately how the game landed for me.

I spent some time enjoying the scenery, but the fighting soon got repetitive, and I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to carve my own path, although this openness in the narrative is specifically what draws other people to the game. For it to work for me, I think I needed more to do in the world, otherwise it just felt like… ”well, may as well kick off a gang war, then.”

I almost feel like I missed out on getting the most of Fading Afternoon, and I do feel like it’ll be a game that pops up in the future and people will tell me how wonderful they found it, which is fantastic. However, Fading afternoon just missed the mark for me, although it has certainly put Yeo on my map, as there’s a real sense of personality to the release that does make it stand out.

SUMMARY

Whilst it didn’t suck me in, I know that there will be a lot of folks out there that will connect with Fading Afternoon and get an incredible experience out of it, I just wish I was one of them.