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A Bird Story is the next chapter of the universe that To The Moon crafted. It’s a game in similiar style and takes place in the same universe, yet it is an “animated pixelated 1 hour short”. We take a look at it and this review on today’s release day.
Therefore it is not the To the Moon 2 that some might expect. For what it wants to be it’s perfect. If you liked To The Moon, this 1 hour short is made of the same ingredients: a calm pacing, a simple story full of emotions, humor, melancholy and things to interpret into, wonderful 2D art and a fantastic soundtrack.
What’s the story about? It’s as simple as it gets. There’s a lonely boy whose parents doesn’t seem to particularly care about him and he doesn’t have many friends at school. One day he finds a bird who is attacked by a wild animal and he saves the bird. The story is about both connecting while he coddles the bird up.
As in the previous game most of the game is made of cutscenes. In this one there’s no dialogue incorporated but the way the game delivers the story is even more satisfying this way, it comes really well across. Even though the game could be very sterile with it’s simple pixelart look and isometric view, it never does because the camera is always in motion and almost acts as another character. With no dialogue the characters have to express a lot more feelings than in To The Moon and the animations make the world feel lively, especially the way the paper moves in the wind – storywise an important aspect which we won’t spoil for you.
Gameplay wasn’t a big part of To The Moon and in this one it seems a bit more interactive in that regard. It starts out with simple movement sections but later on there are some really fun interactive moments which aren’t challenging but let experience the emotions the character goes through at the time, even if it’s just jumping in water puddles with your new best friend. There’s even a vertical shoter-esque flying section on a giant paper plane but we won’t spoil the fun for you.
As already pointed out the soundtrack, composed and played by Kan Gao, the man behind the franchise himself, is once again marvelous. The piano arrangements are just beautiful and support each scene, even give some scenes a weird little note which point to the next game in the saga.
Speaking of the future, you’ll have a nice teaser of what’s to come on that front aswell in this one. Hope to go Finding Paradise soon in the correspondent sequel to To The Moon.
XTvideo: Full Playthrough
Conclusion
A Bird Story is an emotional 1 hour short that is both a nice teaser of things to come for To The Moon fans but also a good entry for those unfamiliar with Kan Gao’s work. As it packs only one memory of “the boy” (there seem to be 7 more in the next game) it’s not as confusing and partly overwhelming as the previous iteration, it has this pace where you really can dive right into this beautifully crafted world. It’s joyful, remorseful, desperate and peaceful, a lot of emotions are lived through in this one hour and adventure fans are urged to take a look at this fine piece of bits and bytes.
A Bird Story
Genre: Adventure
System: PC
Price: €3.64/$4.24/£3.39 (Steam)
Developer: Freebird Games (To The Moon)
Publisher: Freebird Games
All screenshots have been made by us using the review Steam copy of the game. This game was provided by the publisher for review purposes, check our review policy for details.