Unforeseen Incidents - Switch Review

In the small town of Yelltown, an outbreak of a fever coined "Yelltown Fever" has caused the citizens to isolate in their homes. When the proud multi-tool owing town local Harper comes across a woman suffering in the streets, he offers to call the Rancho Health Corporation (RHC) and is surprised by her hesitance, to which she thrusts upon a task to deliver a note to "Helliwell". It is here where Harper's journey of paranoia and webs of conspiracy begins in this point and click adventure around, dare I say it, Unforeseen Incidents.

The Good

Unforeseen Incidents is a story about conspiracy relating to a viral epidemic where as the plot unfolds, distrust towards the officials grows (considering the current state of the world, I'm not going to comment any further on that). The game is full of twists and turns, with a healthy dose of witty humour to compliment its more serious themes.

Each character you come across is wonderfully memorable with their own quirks and dialogue intricacies. I found myself wanting to explore every single dialogue option with each encounter as they were all entertaining, even if they were superfluous to the plot's progression. Harper especially is a lovable doofus who is admittedly clueless about the finer details of the conspiracy but begrudgingly (at first) goes along with it all (whether that be by choice or not).

As you can see from the trailer above and the screenshots below, the art for Unforeseen Incidents is absolutely beautiful. Each object is meticulously crisp and the use of shadow with hand-painted aesthetics makes the game pop for its entire 10 hour runtime. I had to stop from time-to-time in order to gawk at the picturesque vistas that you'll often come across, with lighting effects worthy of chef kisses.

TL;DR

• Interesting story
• Expressively unique characters
• Breath-taking hand-painted graphics

The Bad

The game's load times are significantly long, making backtracking and general exploration quite tedious. After doing my due diligence, I did some research by perusing through a few PC walkthroughs of the game on YouTube and the long load times seem to specifically be a Switch issue. This may be patched in a future update and while I didn't notice any other technical issues, the extended load times certainly becomes frustrating over time.

Harper's movements are very slow and this only puts an exclamation mark on traversing and backtracking being painful. There are some large open areas and when you need to traverse them multiple times with typical backtracking found in point and click games, it makes the process a slog, especially when you're at a loss of what to do next. In addition, there are occasional moments which require precise movements and when you're controlling Harper at a snail's pace who's had a few drinks on a Friday night, it's frustrating, to say the least.

TL;DR

• Long load times between areas
• Slow, awkward movements

Final Score: 8/10

With enough intrigue, twists and turns, Unforeseen Incidents can hold it's head high amongst the point and click greats. With the controls and the long load times on the Switch version being my only gripes, the game is thrilling from start to finish, tackling serious themes while keeping the player smiling.  

Thank you for checking out our Unforeseen Incidents Switch review, thank you to ASHGAMES for providing the review code and thank you to our $5 and up Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt

For more reading, check out our review of Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders.