Review: Schrödinger’s Call Will Make You Cry

Schrödinger’s Call is the latest game from publisher Shueisha Games, coming from the minds of Japanese indie studio Acrobatic Chirimenjako. As a narrative adventure, the title puts players in the role of a young girl tasked with helping people using the phone to talk to them.

The World’s Last Confidant

Schrödinger’s Call is an adventure game that mostly plays as a visual novel with a few segments akin to a point-and-click. In the title, players assume the role of Mary, a young girl tasked with answering phone calls as the World’s Last Confidant.

In the middle of world-shaking events, Mary is responsible for learning more about the spirits who call her and helping them move on from their regrets. Each individual who contacts her is somehow part of a sad story, but their memories are in shambles, and it’s up to Mary to help them remember what happened and piece together these tragedies.

The stories themselves are melancholic and harsh, so only having information isn’t enough to bring the best results. Instead, Mary will empathize with them and do whatever is possible to save these people from their tragic endings brought by the moon falling.

Mary herself also doesn’t know about her own past, and it’s through these conversations that she will eventually learn the truth. In the end, every story has similar elements to Mary’s reality and the pain of the other characters is close to her story. It all feels relatable and tragic in a way that’s deeply emotional.

An Ambiance of Melancholy and Tragedy

A major aspect of what makes Schrödinger’s Call a special experience is its atmosphere. Dark and filled with melancholy, the game opts for black-and-white as its main color scheme, using the shadows and the eerie sounds in a way that perfectly mixes together. The end result is a world that anticipates sadness while leaving players in the darkness until the climax comes to light.

Even the interface, while using few resources, feels compelling to use. The developers use colors, positioning and visual effects effectively to make important information stand out within the somber atmosphere. The visible lines in the characters’ black-and-white coloring also help give them a feeling akin to a picture book.

The gameplay experience in this narrative adventure repeats a structure of getting calls and calling people to try and piece together their stories. As the player learns more, a notebook will be filled with information on everything pertinent as well as drawings of these people and situations.

Though choices are a major portion of the game, this isn’t actually a story about trying to reach different endings. Interaction here is more of a way to keep the player actively interacting with the story, which keeps them as an actual part of the experience even when the outcome is settled.

Interactions and a Loop

At times, players have to call the involved parties, using the information in the notebook, which includes their phone numbers. When talking to these people, it’s possible to sometimes present keywords in the notebook to see how they react and advance the story, getting even more information in the process. There are also a few segments of direct interaction with the environment, like a point-and-click, but they’re rare.

After everything in the current chapter is presented and the person in the spotlight finally remembers the tragedy that befell them, the story goes to a climax that plays like a conflict of sorts. Mary has to use everything she learned to save these people from a cycle of regrets and the only way to do it is to show them the right way through choices.

This discussion with the key characters is when the experience reaches its climax, making the stakes and emotional sides of the experience reach new heights. There’s a lot of animation here and the way it’s presented is intentionally reminiscent of the Buddhist Samsara. Losing themselves in this loop, it’s only through enlightenment regarding their own situation that these people can truly move forward.

The gameplay experience in this narrative adventure repeats a structure of getting calls and calling people to try and piece together their stories.

Part of what makes the story so special, however, is that it manages to both tell a satisfying story and leave room for interpretation. There are harsh truths, kind lies and events that ultimately are not explained so that the player can think for themselves, but the core of the story does find a clear ending.

On the other hand, the one point that can be negative for some players is the repetitive nature of the text. There are many moments in which the dialogues feel a little drawn out. It’s hardly enough to make the experience bad, but it’s still a small thing that keeps it from maintaining the momentum of its storytelling from start to finish. The translation is also handled well, with only about three sentences in the whole game being weird in context.

Closing Comments:

Schrödinger’s Call is an impressive adventure game that offers an emotional dive into various tragedies, using empathy as a guiding force. Just as Mary works her way through people’s stories trying to find hope along with the truth, this is an experience that can resonate with people beyond the screen. It’s one of those games that is so fascinating to see in motion because it has something to say and a strong vision of how to present it in terms of atmosphere and style.