Lost Words: Beyond the Page Review – PC

It’s been years since I was first blown away by What Remains of Edith Finch, and I’ve always wondered if I would ever find another game that captured my interest and heart as much as that iconic adventure.  Well, today is that day and the game is Lost Words: Beyond the Page, a magical and moving narrative adventure beautifully crafted and presented as both storybook and side-scrolling platformer.  Written by Rhianna Pratchett (Tomb Raider), you’ll immediately become captivated with Isabelle Barbara Cooke, or Izzy, a young girl who aspires to become a writer someday and is getting off to a pretty good start with her daily journal entries and her attempt to write her first short story.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page plays out in two fashions, the first being an interactive journal where you control an animated Izzy as she literally walks and jumps around the pages of her journal, where words are ledges.  As you walk across certain highlighted words more of her journal entries are scribbled out on the page along with charming illustrations, and touching blue asterisks will reveal her innermost thoughts.  Some words are detached, written on scraps of paper that can be shuffled around to complete quotes or actually used to interact with the drawings such as grabbing and moving the word “cut” over the tall grass to mow the lawn.  It’s quite ingenious and totally delightful.

The other part of the game is the 2D adventure that plays out more like a traditional video game.  These levels start every time Izzy begins to write her story, putting you into this magical 2D scrolling world alive with charm and color but also very reliant on words.  The story is still heavily narrated with words appearing in precise and thoughtful locations within the art.  Special verbs are added to your journal that you can access and use to affect change within the fantasy world.  Words like Rise, Break, Repair, Burn, Ignore and others can be grabbed out of the book and placed on objects to break a cracked rock blocking a passage or restore a fallen tree or light a torch.  It’s simplistic really, almost like a teaching tool for elementary students, but delightful nonetheless.

There are two stories taking place with some obviously similarities between the two, as tragic events in Izzy’s life start to influence the fantasy adventure she sits down to write each day.  You’ll tear up as you explore her journal entries dealing with her stick grandma and how that is affecting her family, then revel in the wonderful exploration of her fantasy world, as you traverse multiple themed environments; forest, desert, undersea, volcanic caverns, frozen wasteland, etc., interact with all sorts of fantastic characters; genie, lava giant, dragon, etc., and collect dozens of missing fireflies scattered about the world.  It’s an amazing adventure that touches on serious events and emotional subject matter, yet somehow still remains perfectly consumable for kids and adults.  I’d even recommend this as therapy for anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one.  The narrative is so profound at times I would guess that the author had some input from actual therapists.

The technical presentation is flawless with a stunning mix of animated words being scribbled across pages while charming illustrations ink themselves into the empty spaces.  Once in the actual story world you are treated to some quality game graphics that are simplistic and equally as charming, not heavily textured, but loaded with color and just enough detail to blur the lines of video game and storybook illustrations.  The sound effects are perfectly placed and the score is simply magical and worthy of listening to outside the game (available as DLC).  But the single most inspirational and significant contribution to this entire game is the performance from Sidonie Maria Šakālis as Izzy.  There is so much emotion in every word that you are on the edge of your seat for the entire 5-hour experience.  And apparently she has other skills as well, as Šakālis created a lot of the early animation for this game before becoming the voice of Izzy, something she had to fit into unrehearsed recording sessions along with her busy nursing career.  Izzy is perhaps one of my favorite characters in recent video game history and it’s all because of the brilliant work of a 28-year-old animator, voice actress and student nurse from Essex.

As mentioned, Lost Words: Beyond the Page is about five hours of linear gameplay with a dash of exploration and searching for those scattered fireflies, some cleverly hidden as I missed four, but they are required only for the achievement.  As emotionally draining as the game is you might not want to rush right back in to 100% the game, but I definitely plan to experience this moving story/adventure at least one more time.  For only $15 ($20 with the soundtrack), I can’t recommend Lost Words: Beyond the Page strongly enough.  It will touch the hearts of young and old alike and is a great conversation starter for how to deal with personal loss, offering comforting game-therapy at the same time.  Truly a magical experience that should not be missed and totally deserving of our first perfect score of 2021.

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Author: Mark Smith
I've been an avid gamer since I stumbled upon ZORK running in my local Radio Shack in 1980. Ten years later I was working for Sierra Online. Since then I've owned nearly every game system and most of the games to go with them. Not sure if 40+ years of gaming qualifies me to write reviews, but I do it anyway.

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