Novel Review
Blog Andrew Joseph 05 Mar , 2025 0
After winning Game of the Year, it spent two hours in the 2021 Game Awards, and I'm sure the developer Hazelight Studios is actively filled with ideas about what to do next. I'm sure because the team seems to use each of these ideas in the split novel. A charming and confident two-on-one adventure is different, split novels are uninterrupted, collaborative satisfaction, and I smile consistently as we progress, torture and crush to one of the best finals I have ever played. Is it a puzzle platformer? Is this a third-person action adventure? Is it an extreme sports game, or a side roller or a double stick shooting game?
The answer is yes.
Split Fiction is the story of two young and unsuccessful writers Zoe and Mio who were lured into a mysterious tech company because they were eventually published. What they didn't expect, however, was that their brains dug every story they had ever thought about. When it comes to the personal instance of Zoe that scrambles her into a computer system, the two find themselves forced to work together to escape and foil the company's plot. Zoe and Mio quickly and effectively establish as polar oppositions in everything from their attitudes to their accents, but split novels rarely waste time throwing them together.
It's an easy-to-understand premise, and almost confusingly, it's gone without a showdown in twelve games. That is, the idea of being trapped in an interactive, virtual world is a thought of mixing sounds repeatedly in a movie. Of course, despite this, the novel is still coming in 2025, and it is our grim future because we are leaning against our will by AI. Essentially, the novel is two proud middle fingers, which Conga titled “Tech Bros” who thinks art is a commodity that can be scratched, stolen and repackaged by its stolen engine, only adds to its charm.
Non-friction
Just as it needed two before, Split Fiction's platform is immediately on the point. At the disposal of each character, high jump, double jump and air dash, the split novel has the same high aerial maneuverability as its predecessor. Running on the wall can be spectacular links, the hooks of the grabber are shocking, swinging or slingshots, tracks, poles and small landing sites have a soft lock that can draw Zoe and Mio to them – as long as you point them in a large way.
The result is a motor system that is very approachable and proficient, focusing on momentum and timing rather than being overly trapped in punishing minor mistakes or lacking expert-level skills. It's like there's only one bumper in the bowling alley. It's nice to push a little in the right direction sometimes, but that doesn't save you from making mistakes at all.
My only real criticism of the platform is that in some cases it’s hard to catch up after falling behind a partner, as one player stings forward and another player gets caught in a brief dying and resurrection trying to get back on track. It's also a small bug that can be cut from each other as long as it takes up the same space, as this leads to a surprisingly unfinished look. There is no doubt that one character becomes an actual obstacle to another, completely destroying the fast pace of the split novel, but it looks better (and still is completely reasonable) when they find themselves perched on the same small platform, and some kind of digital effect destroys the avatars of Zoe and Mio.
Anyway, Split Fiction’s fast-paced platform is perfect for its dedicated approach to collaboration, especially when played by people with different skill levels, since it is mostly frictionless. Death outside of boss fight, you will automatically and quickly reborn near your partner. die Within A boss battle where you can re-enter the wear after a brief button pounding. Checkpoints are frequent even during boss fights. Reduce their health to the middle, and you don't need to repeat an encounter completely even if Zoe and Mio are defeated at the same time. This is popular because like many bosses, it is not uncommon to suffer a few cheap deaths in battle – usually after rebirth under a deadly attack to bring you back in a blink of an eye to the situation of existence. So they are just short setbacks and we never repeat anything to the point that it feels like a trivia.
Overall, it's not a particularly difficult game, for example, two dads have 80 years of video game literacy nearby, but I'm eager to punish the difficulty, never. For me, the novel soared due to its satisfying focus on communication, collaboration and constant diversity. It is figuring out the path and fun to suggest the right puzzle solution. This is a smile on the misunderstanding of the times, knowing that the punishment for failure is never particularly serious. It decides whether to do three, or one, two, three go! Split novels are nothing, if not the feeling of a toilet that lets you know you need your best friend to drag you away before it explodes. You all saw Deadly Weapon 2, right? I did mention that we were a pair of 40-year-old dads, did I?
Watching my two kids play after finishing the game, I've seen several possible bottlenecks since then (related to the time of passing fatal obstacles), but if the inexperienced players don't have anyone to pour in and save a day, the option to simply jump to the next checkpoint can be used as the last resort. Split novels don't want to delay anyone indefinitely. It wants to play.
Smart, curved story
Split novels are very good at wanting to play, it's very difficult stop Play. It simply didn't take long enough to make it boring. If you ever wondered if you could squeeze the SSX and Shadow of Colossus into the same story, then it's not. Split novels have found a way.
Zoe and Mio are fantasy and sci-fi authors, respectively, and the action is basically evenly distributed between the two genres, but the fantasy and sci-fi branches of split novels are only static. That is, this story is not a pendulum between a sci-fi world and a single fantasy world, repeatedly bound for 14 hours – levels are always different, each level has its own special hook. The psychological archive of Mio's science fiction idea ranges from a neon-shaped, futuristic city full of flying traffic – a cyberninja with anti-gravity that will allow you and a partner to help each other while operating highways A totally different axes – To the space complex next to a dying star, freeing a pulsating explosion that would disintegrate Zoe and Mio if they were covered. Those were just two, and I was very hesitant to drill again. Not knowing that every new level and the story next to it will change the context, and gameplay is an important part of making the novel so tremendously fun.
Zoe's fantasy worlds are a little bit twee initially, usually making me expect short-term sci-fi transfers scattered throughout the process, but they do have better boss fights (I'm not willing to spoil the details of either, but the fantasy boss size is more impressive than making them more memorable). The fantasy part peaks later in the story as it turns into a darker, grander scale, a good springboard for the final level of extension and well-designed final level. This is not only the most impressive split novel in general. This is one of the most memorable finals I've ever played. The whole game of the Rifting Novel is a good-looking game, but the wonder of the whole ending part is a real visual victory for Hazelight.
