Fin and the Ancient Mystery Review

Fin and the Ancient Mystery is the first game I have reviewed on the Nintendo Switch. As the system continues to produce good returns and many interesting 2D platform games, I imagined Fin would fall into that category. The hype and the result just do not compute.
Gamers enter the Ancient Mystery world as the character title Fin, a fennec fox, having to…you guessed it, solve an ancient mystery. This mystery leads Fin on a quest to uncover artifacts in order to save the game world from the Destroyer. Purple gems serve as currency, which can be cashed in for power-ups, experience, magic or health potions, and shields. There was not much else to it.

It was the typical platforming game, as I raced through the levels jumping and juking enemies while collecting sparkly artifacts along the way. There were 10 levels, most of which had an array of hidden stuff to find and a boss to defeat. The combat consists of slashing a sword and using magic to defeat monsters. The utilisation of the purple gems is nearly unnecessary, as many of the power-ups can be uncovered in hidden chests scattered through many of the levels. I did enjoy the mystery solving of the levels and its battle-based feel, however these tidbits were just not enough to overcome the issues in the gameplay.

I was not overall impressed with the gameplay itself, as there were a few issues I found. Firstly, there was no grasp of physics. I know that may sound strange but bear with me. I am the furthest thing from a physicist, but I do game and I can recognise when certain movements should not happen in a game. For instance, I fell off platforms and was randomly auto-jumping over obstacles that simply were not visible. There were some clear touchscreen-based mechanisms, which did not mesh with the Switch platform. While in combat, I felt like my hands were disconnected from the controller, as the controls themselves were just sloppy and rough.

This was yet another game that on the surface appeared to be highly playable. I just could not overlook the simple missteps and lack of story, no matter how mystifying the visuals were. This game is another prime example of a developer overlooking the minute in favor of glamour.

This 2D platformer checks many of the boxes for Fin and the Ancient Mystery to be successful. The levels have good variety and there is plenty of eye candy throughout the story. It just falls short with its gameplay, as everything feels disjointed. There were several noticeable technical glitches or graphical irregularities in many of the levels and the lack of cohesion between control response time and input lag. Unfortunately for gamers, this is the most vital component to a game’s playability, and unless developers proceed to fix some of these gaping holes, its rating suffers.