{"id":122882,"date":"2021-01-06T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/florence"},"modified":"2021-01-06T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T17:00:00","slug":"mini-review-florence-the-very-definition-of-short-but-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2021\/01\/06\/mini-review-florence-the-very-definition-of-short-but-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Florence &#8211; The Very Definition Of &#8216;Short But Sweet&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/6d25afc8d983a\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/6d25afc8d983a\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/111565\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/111565\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Florence Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/florence\"><strong>Florence<\/strong><\/a> originally came to Switch back in February 2020, but we didn&#8217;t manage to review it at launch. Following several reader requests, we&#8217;re pleased to say we found time to catch up with it over the holidays&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>What is Florence? It could be described as an interactive novella or a visual novel, perhaps, although those are pretty dry descriptions of this delightful, evocative nugget. Coming from indie developer Mountains and the artist\/designer behind Ustwo&#8217;s minimalist mobile hit <strong>Monument Valley<\/strong>, Florence&#8217;s short story is another wonderful addition to publisher Annapurna Interactive&#8217;s impressive indie catalogue, and one that&#8217;s absolutely worth your time on Switch.<\/p>\n<p>The story follows a period in the eponymous protagonist&#8217;s life as she begins making her way in the world, embarking on a new relationship and discovering what she wants to do with her life. It&#8217;s a cute tale that mingles the excitement of dreams and new love with inevitable external pressures and the honesty and wisdom that comes with age.<\/p>\n<p>To reveal any more of this short game&#8217;s story would rob you of a touching encounter or moment of realisation, so we&#8217;ll keep totally shtum. Florence is perhaps best compared to other short-and-sweet titles in Annapurna&#8217;s enviable line up; there&#8217;s something of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/gorogoa\">Gorogoa<\/a><\/strong> in its artful, mobile-friendly presentation, although it lacks Buried Signal&#8217;s mind-expanding puzzles.<\/p>\n<p>Florence is much more directly concerned with evoking emotion and recognition through its clever use of mechanics which replicate her mindset during everyday scenarios. Again, we&#8217;re dancing around specifics here, but the game does a wonderful job of conveying evolving social dynamics through elegant little gameplay interactions.<\/p>\n<p>Like Gorogoa, it&#8217;s a game made for mobile that has been sensitively ported to Switch, and console controls are beautifully implemented here. Likewise, Florence can also be experienced on other platforms at a lower price if you feel that the extra cost of the Switch version isn&#8217;t warranted. The Switch release (which includes optional touch controls in handheld mode) is excellent, though, and it looks beautiful on a large TV screen.<\/p>\n<p>The game also sounds lovely, with strings and elegant piano that compliment the mood. Florence is a clean, classy affair that doesn&#8217;t trade in the sun-tinged, ukelele-infested tropes you&#8217;d expect were the game&#8217;s squiggly font to appear on the title card of a navel-gazing Netflix series. Even if its delicate score isn&#8217;t your cup of tea, it doesn&#8217;t stick around long enough to pall. You&#8217;ll work your way though its twenty short chapters in under an hour, after which you can choose to play any of them again and peruse a small gallery of lovely concept and developmental artwork.<\/p>\n<p><em>Under an hour?!<\/em> Yes, but worrying about value for money is really missing the point. If you&#8217;ve read this and you&#8217;re <em>still<\/em> on the fence, probably best you steer clear: Florence simply isn&#8217;t for you. If, however, any single part of the game sounds interesting \u2014 characters, art style, story, mechanics, score \u2014 we&#8217;d urge you to give it a try.<\/p>\n<p>But, what <em>is<\/em> Florence? It&#8217;s an evocation of the beauty, sadness and hope that comes from any human connection we make in our lives, whether with art, nature or another person. It&#8217;s a succinct and incredibly successful exploration of moments you&#8217;ll recognise from your own life, and the way it mirrors thoughts and feelings through small gameplay mechanics makes it one of the most affecting experiences we&#8217;ve enjoyed on Switch, or any other platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florence originally came to Switch back in February 2020, but we didn&#8217;t manage to review it at launch. Following several reader requests, we&#8217;re pleased to say we found time to catch up with it over the holidays&#8230; What is Florence? It could be described as an interactive novella or a visual novel, perhaps, although those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}