The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories (2018)

Even the most hardcore Swery fans will be put off by how sloppy and tedious The Missing is. Much of the appeal of past Swery games was interacting with interesting and colourful personalities. The Missing has none, unless reading text messages counts, and even then the writing is the same movie-referencing material from past games from this director, and its interrupting of the flow of action. The Nintendo Switch has so many better options for puzzle-platformer adventure games - Limbo, Inside, Flashback or Another World, to name a few. The mediocrity of The Missing might have been a bit more tolerable if it weren't such a janky and busted mess. Swery is not the David Lynch of video games; at best he is Ed Wood or a dime store Suda Goichi.

Also, with its limited camera, the game chooses to tell its story primarily through text messages, with only a handful of cutscenes. The plot won’t be spoiled here, but it is both extremely oddball in its storytelling, and also incredibly resonant to our times and anyone who has ever truly questioned if they were happy with themselves for various reasons as J.J. not only seeks to find Emily but also to come to terms with who exactly she wants to be. All of this is done in surrealistic imagery and some surprising revelations.

While it might not be up to the same kookiness of previous titles from SWERY, The MISSING has other reasons to make you stay, leaving you shook and heart-broken with a stop-start narrative, and an gameplay gimmick that doesn't overstay its welcome.

The Missing: J. J. Macfield and the Island of Memories has beautiful landscapes, ok gameplay, and a story that misses the mark. If you're wanting a short puzzle platformer it might be worth playing through but for the majority it's an avoidable experience.

Even though it isn't in the same level as something like Inside, The Missing remains a very interesting and special case that can shock the more sensitive with the issues that it presents.