Best Games: Split Fiction

Another game enters the Best Games of the 2020’s today, and we say “toodaloo” to an inspired take on the modern search action genre.

Split Fiction (2025) goes on as #38

Everybody loved It Takes Two, I’m more of a Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons man myself. Well, actually I didn’t find anyone to play it with and was jealous of all the people that did. So when their next game was announced I was paying attention.

Split Fiction mostly reminds me of Wario Party. But wrapped in a narrative, and fun art, and spectacle, but the mini games are longer, and creatively thoughtful about how two people will do them together. So not Wario Party, but you get it. It is at it’s best when everything it’s doing is in service of asynchronous cooperative game play that changes just often enough to not get stale.

It does that 9 times out of 10, and that 10th time is when it over stays it’s welcome. Either a mechanic or mini game just stops clicking and you get to look around at the set dressing that is holding everything up and question it. But not for long, because you’ve just been whisked into a side story where you are pig that does big farts. Now we are back to the fun and your doing it with a friend.

Metroid Dread (2021) is off the list. My entire run of this game was a week at the beach for Thanksgiving. It had my full attention and was a great modern take on the genre it inspired. But when I got back to regular life I never went back to it.