The Fall arrives for the Nintendo Wii U with an interesting and thrilling premise. Apparently a man named Colonel Josephs is seriously injured when crash landing onto a mysterious planet. His spacesuit called ARID is actually powered and guided by an artificial intelligence. As such, it must set out to search for a medical facility in hopes of saving this man who is currently inside this suit. This won’t be an easy task as there are dangers that await.
The Fall is a 2D platforming adventure title where you’re controlling this ARID to get to your destination. There are two different meters to keep track of: your health and shield levels. If your shield meter is completely depleted, this leaves you vulnerable to your health decreasing. Once that is gone, then the game is over. Both of these meters to recover if you give it time, so plan carefully and accordingly.
 
Control-wise, you have the ability to run, jump, and interact with things in the environment. Later on in the game, you’ll be able to perform other actions such firing a weapon and hiding behind obstacles. In terms of the way the controls feel, initially it can be challenging and awkward. There are times when my intended commands did not come out the way I wanted. Still, with practice and increased familiarity, these instances of frustration lessened. Hence, the controls will take some time to get used to, but once you do, you’ll be able to move on in the game.
Exploring within a dark and gloomy environment, The Fall effectively makes you feel this sense of uncertainty and suspense. This is further heightened when you encounter various enemies which you must hide from or even shoot down yourself. Take note that the enemies AI are pretty smart and thus provide quite the challenge and a sense of exhilaration as you progress further in the game.
Scattered throughout this adventure behind The Fall are elements of puzzle and action, which leads to a fun and brain-boggling experience. The majority of puzzles can be pretty difficult and therefore would require some clever thinking and backtracking. There will be plenty of moments where you’ll get stuck, so patience will be crucial if you want to be able to truly enjoy and succeed in this game.
Considering how The Fall consist of three episodes, the gameplay can be pretty short since it can take around five hours to complete depending on how well you can figure out the solutions to the featured puzzles. This can be somewhat of a downer, but keeping in mind the excellent action sequences along with the heart-pumping boss battle in the end really gives an overall uplifting and fulfilling experience right to the end.
Graphically, The Fall really grabs your attention span to the fullest. The dark and gloomy environments really give that feeling of isolation that brings out the thrill in the game. Details are effectively executed with the lighting effects adding to the eerie yet futuristic atmosphere. Be it on the big screen or the Wii U’s gamepad, the graphics are well done. One slightly negative aspect to The Fall’s visuals is how there are some occurrences of the frame rate stuttering. But these don’t happen all the time. You’ll probably forget about this actually since The Fall has some solid voice acting with the absence of music, which really accentuates the desolation and fear within the game’s background.
The Fall really does a great job in adding fear and apprehension in players, even for a 2D platforming adventure. This is one of those very few Nintendo Wii U eShop titles that leave a much lasting impression, even if it’s quite short. If you’re looking for a scare, definitely you’ll want to give this one a shot!
