The Girl and the Robot (PC) Review

The artistic video game is a true rarity within this world. Rather, it is far too common to get a game on-par with an anti-drug PSA in terms of subliminal message, or a game that has done the artistic version of throwing paint on a canvas and letting the viewer decide what it means. Rare is it that a game comes close to touching upon the qualities that, were it a piece of art, would merit being framed and stored within a classical museum. The Girl and the Robot fits firmly into the latter though, sadly, it would not be a top museum or the centrepiece by a longshot.

It's actually sort of heart-breaking to say bad things about this, because it's so easy to see why it excels. The famed film-maker Hayao Miyazaki of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke, among others, had a particular aspect to most of his films. Every once in a while, there would be these moments of silence where, while little actually happened, it allowed for the film and audience to breath, reminisce, and wonder despite the emptiness that were called 'Ma'. A prime example of one of these moments being the train ride at the end of Spirited Away in which two of the characters are simply sitting on a train as it travels. The moment helps establish the great world beyond, its size and vastness, how strange yet warm it can be, and many other things all with barely anything happening.

Why bring up cinema in such a review? These moments can even translate into games beautifully at times. For example, the simple act of traveling from boss to boss in Shadow of the Colossus, despite relatively little happening, not only lets the players breathe, take in the world, feel small, but makes the battles against the titular colossi feel that much huger and tense despite not being that challenging compared to boss fights in other titles. The Girl and the Robot is basically an entire game based upon these moments of 'Ma' and it shows. Beautifully.

This starts off with a young girl trapped away in a locked room, where a wounded bird comes to rest. Upon tending to the bird its owner unlocks the door, letting her out into the vast world beyond where, soon, she ends up in control of a medallion that allows her to control a mechanical robot. The girl wants to get outside of this lonely place, but a queen and her army of robots stand in her way. The gameplay is fairly simple, nothing that hasn't been seen a thousand times before. The two characters each have their own abilities; such as the girl being small, able to jump, and heal the robot while the Robot can fight, trigger ranged switches, and move heavier objects. It's a simple set-up with few surprises and, if it were merely a game about gameplay, it would be a basic game barely worth mentioning.

…But it's not. This heavily relies upon 'Ma,' and it really shows as much of this adventure is simply quiet. No difficult puzzles, no tense action, not even all that much music, and it shows. A connection can easily form in the strangest, yet best, of ways. From the simple act of how the girl sits on the robot's shoulder when it carries her around, to how the enemies seek to recapture the girl, yet have no qualms about destroying the robot, to the silent and empty towns and lovely graphics - it's all simply beautiful.

It's a rare, yet lovable, pleasure to be certain as something that would otherwise feel burdensome, such as fleeing a group of robots while being the girl without the robot around, ends up feeling tense and engaging, and you really can start to feel both afraid without the robot, yet comforted by its presence. Very few can manage emotion in such a manner… which is why it hurts so much to say that this product has some serious issues.

The combat changes between "ungodly easy" to "teeth-grinding unfair" based on the number of enemies. What can be a series of super-easy fights can suddenly end up with the player being stuck trying to utilize exploits and wall-clipping in order to defeat a room full of enemies. The previously easy and even pleasant puzzles give way to annoying ones, in which the player must switch between the robot and girl to follow invisible paths that could have been so much easier had this just let the path be illuminated for a second or two longer.

Worst of all, however, is that this is very short; so short that these moments of 'Ma' end up feeling like the only moments of real sustenance to an otherwise generic game which can be quickly beaten and, worst of all, ends on a clear cliff-hanger which further adds to the frustration, since these quiet moments don't take much production time leading to the game feeling sort of like they ran out of money more than anything.