Once Again Review – See You Again and Never in the Summer

Once Again is an indie title by Malaysian studio, RB Wolf, taking you on an interactive story featuring time travel, familial bonds and of saying goodbyes. Interestingly enough, it’s a tale inspired by real events, which adds to its layers. Mechanically speaking, it works like those pop up books where you pull on the tabs on the pages, unfurling the craft meticulously folded within.

With the story being such an integral part of this game, this review will not make any mention of its details.

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE

We are mere mortals who are not meant to tell what the future will bring. I’m sure many of us look back on things we wish we could change, or could relive, pulling along our baggage of feelings as we may or may not fully process them.

WIth our protagonist, Sia, we are taken along on a rollercoaster of emotions as we slowly uncover the meaning behind the time travel. The music does an incredible of job of setting the mood to lead emotions and make clear lines for shifts in scenes, overall enhancing the experience.

As an interactive story book, the ‘gameplay’ primarily consists on sliding or clicking on objects, light puzzling and taking photographs as per the theme of the game. It’s kinda like a point-and-click in that aspect. There can be points where you might be stumped if you missed a dialogue hint; I understand that the lack of “overly obvious” hints would help preserve the game’s aesthetics, but it’s still worth pointing out that this can be a potential issue.

The photography part is definitely more engaging as the game asks you to adjust the focus and exposure for that perfect shot. As one with just the One lens for a DSLR camera, it’s a familiar feeling of tweaking it just right for the shot.

IS IT ME YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?

Time is an ever present mechanic, with many scenes involving you turning back the clock. Sia travels through time, being able to spend one precious day in a ‘before’, as he grows taller, older, becoming more mature. Even as you turn back the clock, that is still time that has slipped past his, and your, fingers. As hard as you may try, the passage of time is relentless and unbending.

In addition to the music, the art style is fairly clean and simple, with solid outlines, while the backgrounds are incredibly rich in colour, as though to emphasize a certain ephemeral quality in what passes you by. The elements within the game are not necessarily quintessentially Malaysian, but nonetheless have plenty of scenes that can evoke those feelings of familiarity, home, even, in me.

Unfortunately, this art style can be a slight disadvantage in that outside of the colour-coding of dialogue boxes, the more minimalist visuals could make it harder than necessary to tell apart who’s speaking in a given moment.

TAKE ME HOME

Once Again is one of those titles that make great examples of games as art. On its own, it’s very short and can be finished in an hour or so. However, it is the experience that pulls at your heartstrings, reminding you of oft repeated lessons, giving meaning into the images before you.

I would look forward to RB Wolf to expand on this storytelling style for longer stories and some more interactivity, as there’s definitely something here to look out for.

Code provided by RB Wolf. Game reviewed on PC.

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