Stone is a game that you could easily complete in one sitting. Through a combination of intent and unforeseen circumstances (being mildly drunk and falling asleep, though unrelated to the game), it took a few days to finish, yet in principle, it’s short.
The premise is a stoner noir where you play a koala named Stone. He gets a call that says he’ll never see his partner, Alex, again.
As a private investigator, this is right up his street, only the night before was such a clusterfunk, that the first steps are piecing together a logical starting point and then reverse engineering it.
Stone Switch Review
We all like a hero against the odds, an underdog, or even an anti-hero, and while Stone is more or less a dick, he’s a decent dick deep down. Hmmm…
First impressions from Convict Games entry onto the Switch were very good; the character modelling is excellent, and the titular koala pees all over Blinky Bill with a passion.
Jeitaro
There’s a dither-type filter present that used to be common in many FMV sequences back in the day of the CD-ROM, and it gives a slight retro flair to it, but likely used to keep the filesize down.
It’s not just the data, but the devs’ have shoehorned their passions into the game from Godard to Bukowski, and a fair bit of Aussie lingo, too.
A To B, No Real C
Stone’s gameplay, unlike the koala, is on the rails, with only two options to choose at a time without any significant consequences besides the dialogue. The most common option (using either L or R buttons) is to go in soft or as a hard-ass when questioning people.
It’s impossible not to select the hard-ass responses, as the tirade of f-bombs in Stone can often be hilarious, and the eucalyptus-munching mammal is quite endearing for his very many faults. Alas, there’s not much scope for an adventure other than locating Alex.
Additionally, many of the playable areas are wide open spaces lacking anything to interact with other than a jukebox or drum machine. Stone is padded out with lots of ‘extras’; new music, public domain films (the complete movies) and a few random areas for ‘the experience’.
With the film side of things, you can watch classic films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and others at a local cinema or even in your apartment. Chances are you won’t, though fellow film fans will be surprised at just how much of it you will watch on the Switch.
One For Fans
Aside from cinema-going, Stone can light a smoke or, when in the club, dance. Because he’s cool. The animations are alright, but they don’t serve any purpose unless koalas are your thing, you’re stoned, or you're an achievement hunter. Sadly, the latter doesn’t play out on the Nintendo, so it’s only there to look purdy.
Jeitaro
Add frequent load screens with a bold pink title card saying ‘Stone’, and it might be something that would work better as an animation. As a game, the interaction and challenge are barebones, and a lot of it comes across as filler. What could have changed things up would be consequences for actions, and path-changing dialogue options.
There aren’t many who would say a koala is their favourite animal, and while that’s unlikely to change, Stone does ok for the community and undoes some of the fluff that Blinky Bill left behind. If only there was more of Smiley, the crocodile. The foxes? Nope. Totally miscast modelling, but decent voice acting makes up for it.
Stone won’t appeal to everyone, and the lack of interaction in a lot of areas will understandably be mundane. For this reviewer, the ambience, soundtrack and presentation were very good, yet was somewhat of an Easter egg of references for film fans. While those didn’t go amiss, it‘s seemingly niche and divisive for mainstream audiences. Like some of the films depicted in the game.
Convict Games didn’t offer up a smoke, but a review code was provided.
