GOODBYE WORLD Review

Two Girls, One Game
By Jon Harvey
Reviewed on Switch
Released Nov. 16th, 2022 on Switch, also available on PC
Developer: Isolation Studios
Publisher: PM Studios

​Did you happen to watch Nintendo's "November Indie Showcase"? If you did then you might have seen this little game shown, but you might not have realized what it's all about. From first glance at its screenshots and gameplay videos, you might think (like I did) that "Goodbye World" was an RPG involving creating and playing games that are made by its main characters. The pixel art, the indie RPG look and the dialogue cutscenes gave me this impression at least, and that's why I decided to take a look when we were offered a code… What I actually experienced though was very very different from what I thought I'd be getting. Not necessarily in a bad way, it has its faults, but also intrigued me enough that I played through the entire (short) campaign in one sitting. It's a bittersweet experience that is story-heavy. Like seriously, if you're looking for something choke full of gameplay then this one isn't for you. It's not quite a visual novel, but that's as close as I can come to providing a genre got you. It does contain some traditional gameplay in its 2-hour campaign but be warned that you will spend at least 2/3rds of that simply watching the pixel art cutscenes. The entire story is done this way, with no dialogue choices, fights, exploration, or even movement. It's entirely non-interactive, but still kinda interesting.
 
The story focuses on 2 girls who met while at college. Kanii is a programmer who wants to make games for a living. She's a bit of a perfectionist, but changes her mind easily and can be a bit snobby too. She is also rather abrasive personality-wise and suffers from a lack of confidence, withdrawing into herself a lot when stressed or in situations she doesn't like. While working on her college project, a short game that will act as proof of what they've learned, she decides she wants to do something involving pixel art because it's very popular at this time. Her partner disagrees however and wants to do something more cutting-edge. So they make their case to the teacher running the course. Just by chance though, a talented artist called Kumade also happened to be in the teacher's office and, upon overhearing the discussion, volunteered her skills to the project. Kumade is more friendly and carefree than Kanii, she wants to use her art to make people happy and thinks helping on the project might be fun and will get her art out to more people. The girls work together and, after entering their project into a game dev competition and winning, decide that they'll form an indie game company and try to make a living as developers. 

​Making it in the industry isn't easy and as the games they make don't take off, the girls' personalities begin to clash. Kanii really doesn't want to fail but finds her confidence shattered by the rejection the pair face. She begins to lose sight of what she loves about games and instead starts to chase the latest trends, hoping that doing so will lead to success. Kumade meanwhile is more worried about the real world. With the company struggling the bills are mounting up and she's the only one who can hold down a job for more than a week. The part-time work they took to tide them over is quickly becoming the only source of income, and Kumade wants to focus more on that. Kanii on the other hand wants to focus full time on their company, but is also becoming more withdrawn and depressed with each failure they face. Will the girls succeed? Will they stay together? Will they make a big indie hit and become a success? Or will they drift apart and shatter their dreams? Well, I'm not going to spoil it any further here so you'll need to play it to find out. Although, I say "play" but I mostly mean "watch" … As I said earlier, the story is ENTIRELY non-interactive but also that there is some actual gameplay here. So where does that come in?
 
Well each chapter of the story will have a section, usually when Kanii is stressed or withdrawing into herself, where she whips out her (what's supposed to be) Gameboy and plays a fictional game called "Blocks". It's the only part of the whole thing that has any actual gameplay and, while simple, is still rather entertaining. You control a little blob-like creature, who can jump around and destroy blocks. Each block you destroy is then collected and can be placed in different locations around the level to solve various platforming puzzles. It gets quite complicated later on, requiring real careful thought to finish every level, but what amazed me was how authentic it felt. This "game within the game" will tickle the nostalgia button of anyone who played on the actual OG Gameboy. Everything from the green background, the distinctive start-up noise and display, to the actual sounds, graphics, and gameplay all feel like they came from a genuine Nintendo Gameboy game. That also causes problems too though, mostly with the control scheme. If you remember the OG Gameboy then you'll know it had very simple controls. Literally 2 buttons and a D-pad were all we had, and they've tried to keep that in this little game too. One button breaks bricks, while the other is used to bring up the placement menu. This means jumping, something integral and important in a platform game, is assigned to "Up" on the joystick or D-Pad. 

​Which is imprecise in practice and feels awful. It may be authentic to how games were then but when having to carefully jump over spikes or between moving enemies, as you do in later levels, it becomes frustrating with how difficult it can be. You also only get 3 attempts on each level, and while actually finishing them doesn't matter (the story moves on in the same whether you complete the level or not), I felt annoyed if I didn't get to finish each stage due to annoying controls. Utilizing the extra buttons available on a modern controller might have broken the Gameboy style but would have meant jumping was more precise and felt "right" rather than uncomfortable.
 
Outside of this little pretend Gameboy game, the story sections have a little bit of annoyance to them as well now I think about it. First up is the strange blurry effect the Devs have gone with. I get it's supposed to give a "well-used VHS tape" look to the whole thing but it's just too much. I blinked a good few times on almost every scene change, thinking I had dry eyes or blurry vision. But nope, it was just the "vaseline on a lens" look they went for… There's also a problem with dialogue speed. It's SO slow. Not too bad the first time you play, it's manageable, going through a section you've already been through before however was a bit of a chore. It's just so sluggish, pausing every time a different character begins to speak, and has no option to change the speed. For a game that's mostly dialogue sections, not having the option to change text speed is a strange omission. You couldn't even just skip through it quickly either which is weird.
 
Ultimately I wanted to like Goodbye World but it just didn't grab me. The story is interesting, and I did want to see what happened with the girls, but the slow text and blurry style were difficult to get through. No gameplay for nearly 2/3rds of the game is also a weird choice for a video game. These sections could easily have gameplay in them, actually doing Kanii and Kumades jobs, walking home, creating pixel art, trying out different game styles for projects, etc could all have made this a more rounded experience. As it is though, it's more like a long cutscene with a fake Gameboy game thrown in. This interactive element is, while extremely well done, nothing but a sideshow ultimately and not needed at all. It's does nothing to push forward the narrative and it doesn't even matter whether you successfully complete it or not. Goodbye World is an interesting idea, with a decent story, that's let down by a lack of interactivity and some strange choices in its visuals and dialogue speed. It's hard to recommend for "true gamers" but its story might interest those looking for a very short casual experience that will help pass a couple of hours.
*Note: A copy of the game was provided for the purpose of the review.

Final Score: 4.5/10 

​+Unique story
+Nice pixel art
+Blocks feels SO authentic 

​-Lack of Gameplay
-Weird blurry visuals
-Text is slow
-Platforming doesn't feel great