I and Me (Nintendo Switch) Review

By Josh Di Falco 11.07.2017

Review for I and Me on Nintendo Switch

I and Me is the latest to hit the Nintendo Switch in the genre of puzzle-platformers. It asks the philosophical question of "How would I get along with another me" if "observing myself from the perspective of a spectator?" The developer Wish Fang attempts to answer the question in the style of a beautifully hand-drawn depiction of two cats having to traverse stages while being controlled at the same time. Featuring an assortment of levels to the backdrop of the four different seasons of time, how exactly does this game fare?

With no tutorials needed, the game kicks off with the two cats sitting on the stage. Learning how to navigate these two is pretty easy and simple. When one cat moves right, the other cat also moves right at the same time. When there's a gap, they both must jump over it at the same time, so timing is everything. Where it gets tricky is when the cats are placed on two different platforms, and one cat must make a specific jump while the other cat is beneath a set of spikes that lead to dying. The kicker is both cats must survive and make it to the stages end, which are two wooden holes for the cats to peek through.

While it all sounds really tricky and is something that can quickly spiral out control, the reality is that I and Me really never raises the gauge on the difficulty metre. It is a pretty easy game that throws up mild challenges that may take a few more minutes to solve. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as this is a great-looking game with a nice and soothing orchestral backing track. However those looking for a challenging puzzler won’t find anything of value here. To make matters a little easier, the game provides ‘Hints’ that show how to complete two-thirds of the stage, which more often than not also solves the puzzle as well, save for reaching the final holes for the cats. These ‘Hints’ rarely need to be touched on, though, as again, the puzzles are quite easy to figure out without them - although for the younger generation of gamers, the Hints will be a handy tool to utilise.

Screenshot for I and Me on Nintendo Switch

There are 90 stages that are spread out into the four different seasons. Each season introduces a new game mechanic that the cats must use to solve the puzzles, and figuring out how to use them is entirely up to trial and error. These mechanics do add fun to the mix, and sometimes increase the challenges of the puzzles, such as the one magic wand which reverses the movements of the cat that touches it. Figuring out to control two cats, which move in the opposite direction at the same time, is as tricky as the game really gets, but again, it's nothing the Hints cannot easily solve.

Parchments are found in some of the stages, and finding them adds a little more narrative detail to the overarching theme of the story being told. However, to say that these help shed further light on what is actually going on is an overstatement. To further aggravate the narration aspect, is the style of font used. The cursive style makes reading them a nightmare sometimes, and considering that every single stage begins with a line of the narration, just hurts the story that is trying to be told.

Screenshot for I and Me on Nintendo Switch

Cubed3 Rating

6/10
Rated 6 out of 10

Good

I and Me looks like a beautifully hand-drawn game that controls quite well. Its fluid movement makes navigating the stages easy, with no mechanical drawbacks. However, the promise of a deep and meaningful story is hurt by the hard-to-read cursive font used to present all the narration, thus losing all the appeal of what is supposed to feel like a haunting tale. Beyond that, though, the stages are pretty easy to figure out and complete, though playing around with the four main mechanics introduced with each new season is fun in itself, and allowing for experimentation strengthens them. The hints that the game offers up actually overstep their mark, and instead they solve the puzzle entirely; however, they hardly need to be used, as I and Me rarely lifts the difficulty metre at all.

Developer

Ratalaika

Publisher

Ratalaika Games

Genre

Puzzle

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  6/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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