The Wreck

While I try not to discriminate when it comes to genres, I’ll freely admit that I’m not a big fan of visual novels. The few I’ve reviewed in the past were either boring, poorly-written or a real slog to get through, so I mostly ignore the genre when covering games. But that is not the case when it comes to The Wreck, an inventive new story-driven game that is overflowing with style and a visual flair that kept me glued to the screen from the first heartbreaking revelation to the last. It’s a game that evolves the genre, giving us an emotionally-draining experience that you won’t soon forget. This is my review of The Wreck, the single best visual novel game I’ve ever played.

Things are not going well for Junon, the thirtysomething year-old French woman at the center of The Wreck. We first meet her at the hospital, where she’s being told that her aging mother has suffered an aneurism and that Junon may soon need to make what could be a life-or-death decision about her care. What we soon discover is that this is just one of many recent problems that this former-writer will need to deal with over the course of the day, some of which include reconnecting with an estranged sibling, hashing it out with a former boyfriend and overcoming a whole lot of grief. And that’s before we even get to the titular wreck.

Without giving too much away, we learn that Junon has what can best be described as a contentious relationship with her mother. Part of this comes from the fact that the mother in question is The Marie Demange, the world-famous artist with a larger-than-life personality and a venomous tongue. We see how this intersects with Jun’s relationship with her younger sister, Diane, who shows us a new side to the grieving narrator. With each passing conversation, we learn that Junon has a lot of mental stuff she needs to work on, much of which stems from that wreck we keep tiptoeing around.

One thing that surprised me about this game is that it isn’t afraid to show you the wreck in question. In fact, over the course of the five-hour adventure, we probably see that wreck a dozen or more times. The game uses the wreck as a clever framing device to set up flashbacks that fill in the story. As the car flips over, we’ll see different objects flying around that will trigger a short vignette about something related to the story, usually something Junon regrets saying or doing.

These vignettes will represent important moments in time, such as Jun’s 25th birthday party, her move to the big city as a single woman or that one time she found an injured bird as a child. We are given an almost dream-like loop of that time, which you can play either forwards or backwards while looking for words to interact with. This is a fun scavenger hunt through the memories, forcing you to look at each detail in different ways. These vignettes slowly add up to one hell of a reveal, giving us a satisfying payoff that makes the whole journey worth taking.

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It really helps that Junon is a complicated and troubled character. There’s the mother issue, the sister drama, the former boyfriend, career frustration, co-dependency problems, rock-bottom self-esteem and all kinds of untreated trauma, guilt and grief. She is, for lack of a better word, a wreck. That can be a lot at first, but as we get a better look at what happened in the car crash, we start to understand where she’s coming from. There are some big revelations in this game that will hit you hard. This is one of those games that wants to rip your heart out.

The reason all this works so well is because Junon is an immensely likeable character. Even though we’re seeing her on one of the worst days of her life, you can see the goodness in her. She’s quick to make a sarcastic joke or show-off that she’s a cinephile by name-dropping Gondry or Tarkovsky. She’s also flawed in a lot of realistic (and relatable) ways, and I like that the game never turns her into a caricature of a grieving woman. This was a character I wanted to root for, even if a lot of her problems are self-inflicted.

Although it’s being sold as a “3D visual novel,” The Wreck is more like an interactive mini-series. With fully-voiced characters and everything animated in front of you, there’s not much reading required while playing this game. That said, you’ll want to pay close attention to the dialog, because sometimes you’ll have a choice to steer and expand the thought by clicking on the red words. You’ll also be able to choose what Junon says, though not in every circumstance. I like the way the game uses some of the elements held-over from more traditional visual novels.

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Because everything is animated and the entire game looks like a long cinema scene, the developer has been able to frame certain shots in dramatic ways that really hammer home the important information. This is a great looking game that is bright and stylish, yet never gets in the way of the darker themes and topics. It also makes the most out of the limited locations, especially that hospital. Half of this game could have been set in front of bland beige backgrounds, yet the developers never let that happen. They are constantly finding new ways to keep the frame interesting, and their hard work did not go unnoticed.

What’s even better than the presentation is the writing. Between the topics and the complicated character, this is the kind of story that could have run off the rails in a lot of different ways. Thankfully, the writer had confidence in the player, allowing the game to subtly hint at issues long before they become the story’s focal point. This is the kind of game that will tell a smart joke and not feel the need to explain it. I like that it tackles a lot of big topics in an intelligent and thought-provoking way, something we don’t get enough of in the gaming space. And with so many incredibly memorable moments sprinkled throughout this five-hour adventure, The Wreck is a game I’m definitely going to be thinking about for the rest of the year (and beyond).