The Wanderer is a, mechanically, traditional top-down 2-D puzzle game. The players control the titular creature as they wake up in an unknown place and slowly explore a series of scenarios. There is light point-and-click elements and some simple rhythm action sections. The art direction makes the game look different – the world itself looks like a water colour painting. Hills are green sweeps, churches are pale grays and muddy browns, and town square blooms in bright yellow light.
Early in The Wanderer, the player is charged with stepping in and either defending a deer from a snake or walking away. The choice itself is splashed across the screen with a button prompt for either choice. For an instant it completely lost me.
For whatever criticism people have of Kenneth Branagh’s cinematic adaptation Frankenstein there is a central conflict in the audience. The monster that Frankenstein creates is clearly sympathetic and you feel like he deserves justice or, at the very least, peace. However when it slams it’s fist into Frankenstein’s fiancee’s chest and rips out her heart, it is only thanks to Frankenstein being even worse of a person that the audience is able to see the creature in any kind of positive light. The early parts of Wanderer struggled to create that conflict between and provide an explanation for why I wouldn’t save the deer.
The story is told entirely from the creature’s perspective and shows how each part of society rejects it due to a misunderstanding or misguided fear. The story does a good job explaining why the wanderer is a person that deserves to be treated with kindness, it just never shows the reverse side or a motivation for why it would do pushed to its most vicious. When presented with ‘run away from the villagers’ and ‘retaliate’ it is hard to think of choosing the latter other than to see an alternate ending.
Speaking of endings, The Wanderer does a very good job of spinning things off, breaking past the 4th wall to ask the player what their involvement is in this. It is a flourish at the end that had me pause for thought.
It is shame that the game has a lot of places that could have done with a little more polish. There is invisible collision that impedes progress for inexplicable reasons, user interface prompts that overlap, and the rhythm game’s colour coordination is a nightmare for the colourblind. This adds up to a game that needed a few more passes before release.
Conclusion
The Wanderer is an interesting look at the Frankenstein story and the visuals are appealing. However, what is here is a little predictable and the binary choices don’t inspire the imagination.
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This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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