Contrast

 
   This is a review where I backtrack ever so slightly in my gaming experiences. Contrast was one of the first games that I played for the PlayStation 4. The game itself was developed by Compulsion Games and it's a puzzle/platform game in the purest sense of the genre. When I started the game, the first thing that I notably enjoyed about it right away was the setting.
   The game as a 1920s noir style of setting, clearly taking a lot of inspiration from the Jazz Age. The flavor is one that I feel is unique to the game, but had me reminiscent of certain films I'd seen in the past, particularly films by Jean-Pierre Jeanet, like City of Lost Children and Amélie. There is this dark tone to it, but all the while giving off this very surreal feeling of wonderment. The world has a real personality and style that is fairly gorgeous to look at in the game. The soundtrack itself has a nice charm to it, definitely embracing the music of the era that inspired it. There was something very satisfying of walking down a darkly lit street with the neon signs of bars and clubs in the distance and slowly beginning to hear up-tempo jazz music begin to play.

   What's interesting to note about the world of Contrast is that Dawn and Didi are the only people in the game who appear in a tangible way. They're the only characters to appear with 3D models. Most other characters you meet, interestingly enough, are simply shadows cast on various walls in the environment, which is a constant visual motif throughout the game, both in the puzzles and the overall story.
    The story itself, however, is what I found the most lackluster. You take control of Dawn, who appears to be the imaginary friend of a young girl named Didi. As you venture through the game, you begin to learn more about Didi and the life she has with her parents. You go on learning about the troubles between her parents, her dad's attempts to make money constantly failing and getting himself in shady situations and so on. It wasn't the most terribly original story, but in the context of a game like Contrast, the story is not the main focus.
   The platforming and puzzles all come from this motif, where you often have to play with shadow and light in order to solve them. To me, it's one of the more unique and clever approaches to puzzles in a game that I've come across in a very long time. They were challenging, but they were still possible, and it was satisfying when I found myself able to complete one.

   Visually, the game is far from perfect. It would be pretty far down the list for a game I would choose to showcase what the PS4 and other nextgen systems are presently capable of, as it certainly does not do the system justice. As I had said before, this does not mean the game is looks awful by any means. In light of the small team that seemed to work on this game, going by those standards, I would consider the game to be very impressive.
   The game is simple. It's there to tell you a new and compelling story of human drama (though I do find the characters charming and likable) nor does it really make ground-breaking changes to the way video games are played, particularly in the puzzle-platformer genre. But, the game does manage to feel different and give the notion that I'm not playing every other puzzle game I've played for. Contrast does manage to do some very interesting things with the mechanics it introduces in its puzzles.