LogFAQs > #902348357

Overrated #1 - Gone Home

I don't feel right about hating Gone Home, but I do. It feels like it swung for the fences with its message and hit the saddest grounder to the first baseman that anyone has ever hit.

The mansion is set up to be spooky but there is literally nothing actually spooky about it, except for one entirely useless prop near the very end. The main plot line about your sister paints the sister as someone who doesn't face her issues with maturity but instead with an incredible amount of melodramatic whining and a complete disregard for doing smart things. And the music is HORRIBLE.

The sister's main character trait of being lesbian was important. It was important for characters like this to exist in games. It was important to paint their struggles, especially in a way that real people that go through these things can relate to. At times, they succeeded. But, the issue is where the character ends up and how the end of the story is told. When the sister dropped a line like "The sunset light in this house is the saddest thing I've ever seen," I just kinda groaned. That's not good writing for your character. That's taking me right out of any realism you had with her. That's way too dramatic.

Perhaps it's my own personal character that makes it hard for me to relate to a line like that. I'm not one for a ton of drama or looking at everything in a sad light when I'm sad or upset. I certainly was when I was younger, like in middle school. That was a time that I think of now as my immature years, and when I see this character act like that, I think "I totally get the struggle but can you just grow up a little bit and then tell the story again?" And this is all driven home by the ending. She is 17 and she goes and runs away with her also very young lover because she is so infatuated. That is irresponsible. That is dangerous. And it is probably not a story that ends up very well for either Lonnie or Samantha. In fact Samantha probably ends up having to go back home because her and Lonnie have no money.

I sympathize with the sister and I am by no means saying that the struggle she endures is trivial or something she just needs to brush off, but I don't really like her. She seems like a character that in any other game with any other defining trait no one would like her. So how do the other characters fare? Well, I suppose that's very subjective, but I didn't think the other characters' stories (revealed of course through the various things to look at in the house) were entirely captivating either. This is a game entirely based around discovering the CHARACTERS and I did not end up really liking or particularly caring about any of them.

So I have to say, I appreciate the message this game tried to give and I completely understand if anyone who is LGBT loves this game. Personally, I think it didn't deserve a single one of those perfect scores. It certainly shouldn't have ever been in the discussion for Game of the Year.

I like this quote from Eurogamer's review:

"...noble intentions aren't enough in themselves, and when the screen fades to black it turns out that Gone Home doesn't have much to say for itself. It's more manifesto than message."
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Got a brand new blues that I can't explain