Contrast (Review)

Developer: Compulsion Games
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Available On: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One
Xbox One version reviewed on Xbox Series S

To say I’ve had a long and complicated history with Contrast is a bit of an understatement. It was an early PlayStation Plus offering during the launch of the PlayStation 4 in 2013, but since I wasn’t able to secure that shiny new next-gen hardware when it first came out, I ended up not being able to claim the game. It wasn’t until a month or so later that I found out I could have just gone on the PlayStation website and claimed it that way, which left me feeling annoyed with myself. While I could have bought it at any point thereafter (it ended up on sale frequently) it slowly became this weird mythical game for me. This was “the game that got away” and for some reason I let it keep that status instead of just dropping the $10-15 for it. Now, a decade later, I noticed it was on Xbox Game Pass and decided to finally sit down and put this self-imposed legend to the test.

Set in Paris during the 1920s, Contrast tells the story of a young girl named Didi and her imaginary friend Dawn. Although a good kid at heart, Didi has a habit of sneaking out late at night to explore the city. Her mother, an up-and-coming singer who rarely has time for her, performs racy tunes at local bars and nightclubs, while her recently kicked-out father constantly entangles himself with the mob. Fearing what’s to come and desperately wishing for a stable family life, Didi heads out with Dawn to look for a way to turn things around. Unfortunately, despite an interesting premise, Contrast never manages to say or do anything with its story that feels lasting. It’s a messy and inconsistent tale about broken families, lies, and revelations that pulls its punches at every opportunity, resulting in a story that ultimately feels forgettable.

A perfect example of how poorly all of this is managed comes in the form of the player character, Dawn. Although only Didi can see her, Dawn has the ability to shift between a three-dimensional form and a two-dimensional shadow. While in her 3D form, Dawn can follow Didi through the city streets, interact with switches, lift boxes, and jump and dash around the environment. In her 2D shadow form, Dawn can run along walls and interact with other shadows like platforms to reach new areas. It’s a cool gameplay mechanic, but early on they really try to hit home that there’s more to Dawn and her powers. Sadly, the game treats Dawn’s entire story and explanation as an afterthought, completely breezing over any answers in the most unsatisfying way possible, resulting in an ending that’s incredibly abrupt and disappointing and makes the majority of the game feel like a waste of time.

While the gameplay is full of great ideas, it falls into the same trap of the story by having poor execution. In the early sections of the game, the shifting between dimensions feels smart and fun to play around with. It does a tremendous job of teaching you the basics and then slowly making the puzzles more complex and letting you figure out how to solve them naturally without popping up the answer immediately. The way light and shadow transform from simply being part of the visuals to being your key means of transportation is genuinely exciting and once you start seeing the world the way it wants you to it feels like a revelation. Unfortunately, this whole experience is brought down by some shoddy and inconsistent controls. It’s one of those games where you can clearly see the potential under the surface, but it’s just not realized.

The main issue here is the act of shifting between the two dimensions. In order to shift into your shadow form, you have to be touching a wall or other flat surface that’s currently being illuminated by a light source. On Xbox, you do this by pulling the right trigger, which pulls you out of the shadow form when you pull it again. What makes this so frustrating is that the whole thing is incredibly touchy and also feels like it’s plagued with detection bugs. Sometimes hitting a platform or some other shadow will instantly pop you out of the surface for no reason, and what exactly causes this is never made clear. I constantly found myself being forced out of surfaces for seemingly no reason and having to redo certain platforming sections over and over again. One particular section involving a carousel and the shadows the spinning horses make was so tediously difficult due almost entirely to how buggy the main mechanic of the game feels.

These problems extended even further in later areas when you learn how to turn objects in the 3D dimension into movable shadow objects in the 2D dimension. These puzzles are often easy enough to work out, but the failure of the game mechanics to work consistently becomes almost aggravating. There’s nothing worse than knowing what you need to do and the game prevents you from doing so in a way that’s outside of your control. I even had one puzzle toward the end where an object I had to interact with disappeared entirely while shifting between dimensions, thus preventing progress and forcing me to restart that section. As great of an idea as this mechanic is, the game simply fails to make it work effectively enough to enjoy.

One of the few redeeming qualities of the game is its soundtrack. While I’m by no means an expert on these genres, there’s some really nice jazz and blues music played throughout that adds a nice bit of charm and personality to the experience. It’s never anything too wild or big, but it’s a nice companion to have in a game that can be frustrating to play through. The only downside to the audio here is that while the music and dialogue are clear, the sound effects tend to get lost in the background, a problem that requires extra fiddling around with audio levels to correct.

As far as performance goes, it could be better, but it could also be worse. I’m not sure what the exact frame rate is, but it’s definitely below 60, and you can feel it. While not constant, there are occasional moments where the frame rate dips significantly, hiccups, or freezes, but surprisingly enough these don’t get in the way half as much as some of the previously mentioned issues. I think it’s safe to assume the PC version probably performs better, but since this is only a 3-4 hour game it’s easy to look past these technical problems.

On a final note, I feel like this was oddly enough a learning experience for me. Sometimes when it comes to video games, movies, or any other form of entertainment, we can fall into the trap of setting our expectations too high. Maybe if I had just played this closer to release instead of waiting 10 years and letting this grow into a weird personal white whale, then I would have seen this game in a different light. At the same time, I feel like the problems this game suffers from would have bothered me back then as well, and I’m still hard-pressed to give this my recommendation.

FINAL VERDICT

I waited 10 years to play Contrast, and now I’m wishing I had waited even longer. I don’t particularly enjoy writing negative reviews, especially since I’ve always made a point of trying to be respectful in my critiques, but Contrast simply isn’t a good video game. This is a shame since I think there’s a really cool idea under these layers of poor execution. Shifting between light and shadow is a concept that’s been done in other games, but the way it’s utilized here feels like the perfect setup for something special. Unfortunately, the controls feel so broken and frustrating that I found it hard to enjoy my time with the game, and the fact that its story doesn’t really go anywhere left me feeling disappointed as well. While there is some nice music to listen to as you sludge your way through the game, there just isn’t enough good here to make it worth the recommendation.

– Zack Burrows