They say in order to move forward you have to let go of the past, but for Edith Finch the past won’t let her go. She must travel back to her home in Washington exploring her ancestors’ history and finding out once and for all whether her family is truly cursed. What Remains of Edith Finch is a first-person adventure game with a focus on narrative. Though some disabled gamers may have obstacles to deal with, most will be able to enjoy the game without much trouble and get to experience its brilliant story.
What Remains of Edith Finch doesn’t have customizable controls, so disabled gamers with fine motor skill impairments may have some trouble especially when it comes to controlling the camera. Although the game does allow you to choose whether the camera is inverted or not, you don’t have the option to swap control sticks and that could be a problem for some gamers. Still, the gameplay in What Remains of Edith Finch mostly consists of moving the main character and solving puzzles so there aren’t many moments where quick movements are needed. The basic controls consist of pressing the right trigger to interact and move with the left control stick. Sometimes you’ll be moving both control sticks to do something as simple as opening a book. The problem with critiquing the controls and difficulty level in What Remains of Edith Finch is that the gameplay is constantly changing depending on which family member’s memory you’re experiencing. You can go from an overhead perspective as you become an owl in the mind of a child, or a third person perspective as you dungeon crawl in the mind of a teenager. Each memory changes the controls slightly. Some memories were harder than others to complete, so I would say gamers with fine motor skill impairments may have trouble depending on the memory. Visually speaking the game has a brightness slider you can change and you can turn on the aiming reticle if you so desire. You can change the music, dialogue, and sound effect volume individually in the game. However, gamers with hearing impairments may have some problems with the subtitles in What Remains of Edith Finch. The subtitles are very stylized and used in a way that makes them appear as floating objects. You can walk through the subtitles or accidentally ignore them if you’re not facing the direction they want you to be in. There are subtitles for every line of dialogue, just be warned that they are not always easy to see.
What Remains of Edith Finch has a really imaginative story and the creative team went above and beyond to let you have a unique gameplay experience for each of the family members’ memories. The constant change in gameplay and controls could prove difficult for some disabled gamers with fine motor skill impairments, and a lack of customizable controls won’t help. For gamers with hearing and visual impairments however, there won’t be too many problems aside from spotty subtitles.
This article has been transferred from DAGERSystem (now AbilityPoints). Scores, formatting, and writing style may differ from original CIPT content.
