Fragments of Him is a beautiful story of life, love and death. It shows what happens to love ones after someone close to them dies.
General Gameplay
The game to its heart is a story driven game. There is not much other than interaction and some dialog choices to make (which does not affect the game outcome). Mostly just general interaction with the environment to get the game story moving, however the game is a short, clocking in around 3 hours.
Audio
The game delivers on the voice acting work. Making you feel a part of the story with the narration from beginning to the ending you will feel the life, love and pain of the game. There is minimum language within the game, however it does deal with a homosexual relationship, so there is some dialog that refers to this (more on the family friendly section). There is some ambient sounds and minimum music, but the most of it comes towards the 3rd and final act of the game which is a somber music. The game does not support 5.1 surround sound, but there is no need for it here.
Visuals
Being more of a “Point and Click” style of game, the game graphics are minimal at best. From basic furniture to scenery to show the level is the most that you will see throughout the game. There is no explosions, HDR style of coloring or anything mind blowing with the visuals, even the main character does not have full facial features but it does the job that it needs to tell the story. The game does not support a color blind mode but with the way the presentation there is no need for it. In our playtest there was no issues with our gaming family playing the game. However keep in mind there is a scene in the game in which the main character does get into the shower and his backside is exposed.
Controls
The controls are very simple, just point and click to advance to the next part of the game. The game controls are designed to make the user navigate around and see visual cues of what to do next by having a yellow outline around the object to go interact with it. In our playtest, no one had any trouble playing the game what so ever.
Delivery
If you are looking for a good story in a game then Fragments of Him, will deliver on this. That being said, the game can be completed within 2-3 hours, once the game is done there is nothing else to go back to do in the game. There is no multiple endings, alternative scenes or even different things to do. This is a game with a straight forward story that gets to it. Now that being said, this game will not be for everyone, from the subject matter, to the length of the game, this will be for gamers that are looking for a heavy story driven game, or are fans of the old “Point and Click” style of story and adventure.
Family Friendly
This is where the review gets interesting. Just like with Gone Home, we here at Family Gamer Review had an interesting conversation about the subject matter. As the game does deal with people dealing with a love one’s death, it is also the main character that is gay. Now some parents will have an issue where the game is dealing with a character death, not like in a “die and respawn” or die in the story but come back in the game a couple of hours later, but with death and how people deal with it. This sometimes does open questions for younger gamers and parents/guardians so please use caution when playing this title. Also another topic came up in which the main character is openly gay, again in our day and age that there are more television shows, movies and such with gay and lesbian characters, some parents/guardians will not feel comfortable with the subject matter being in a game, but for a second do not think about the lead being gay, but more of a story of a death and how people that loved him are coping with it. We here at Family Gamer Review feel that the game may not be for all gaming members but for the older gamers in the family that are ok with the subject matter, then this is a game that we would highly recommend.
Closing
Fragments of Him is a wonderful story that is told with great voice over work, but with its short gameplay, no replay and no gameplay after completion, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea in the end.
