Greatest Month Ever tells the dramatized story of a quite common story—the challenges of a single mom elevating a toddler on her personal. Louise—the principle character and mom of 8-year-old Mitch—is identified with a terminal sickness, and she or he’s instructed she has just one month to dwell. Throughout her final month, she and Mitch head on an action-filled journey to make amends with Louise’s previous and discover Mitch a house for when she’s gone, all whereas studying worthwhile life classes.
Set within the ‘60s, the sport begins with Louise and Mitch pulling right into a diner car parking zone the place she explains she must get one final paycheck earlier than heading on their journey. She tells Mitch to attend within the automobile and heads in, greeting her coworker. Controls on this recreation change between Mitch and Louise, and as soon as she’s inside, you play because the son, working round and watching via home windows as his mother is harassed by her boss, and requested to do inappropriate issues for her cash.
Conditions like this occur all through the sport, and you might be given alternative ways to react. What you do will have an effect on Mitch and dictate the person he grows as much as be, assigning factors to righteousness, confidence, and social relations scales.
The story escalates shortly from right here, tackling heavy topics resembling sexual harassment within the work place, racism, sexism, and homicide. Mitch is a black little one who faces a whole lot of discrimination as the sport continues. And although Louise is white, she additionally faces a whole lot of troubles as a single mom who was in a biracial relationship.
The primary heavy topic the sport brings up is the sexual assault Louise confronted as a toddler. It isn’t mentioned precisely what occurred, however the recreation does say {that a} Priest and good friend of her household provided her sweet and assaulted her. When Louise instructed her household they refused to imagine her. This created a wall between them, which ultimately brought on her to run away.
Determined for a house for Mitch, Louise returns dwelling after the diner incident, however shortly leaves after being met with critical hassle. She and Mitch are in for much more, although, as their journey continues. They discover themselves in very harmful conditions, resembling a KKK assembly, drug journeys, and pace chases.
The story of Greatest Month Ever is instructed via Mitch as an grownup wanting again on his life. Although a whole lot of the sport is listening to dialogue, there are moments the place you possibly can run round, and even mini game-like eventualities you want to full to maneuver on.
Greatest Month Ever exhibits the issue of constructing choices when elevating kids, particularly ones of shade in a really closed-minded atmosphere. For instance, there’s an element on their journey the place Louise has to strip for extra cash. She will be able to both take away her garments to make the gang pleased, or simply dance and make much less cash. She isn’t conscious that Mitch has snuck out the dressing room and is watching her, however both manner the selection to permit him to see that and earn extra, or maintain him protected from the objectification of ladies and earn much less is a troublesome one. This recreation is nice at placing you in uncomfortable conditions that can assist you perceive the motivations behind the actions some persons are pressured to take.
Nonetheless, some components of the sport appear to feed into the stereotypes they’re making an attempt to interrupt down. Greatest Month Ever additionally tried to sort out all the things directly, which might be overwhelming for some gamers. There are some factors the place very critical topics are form of downplayed. This may make sense for pacing functions, nevertheless it’s additionally typically onerous to maneuver on from issues that occur within the story so shortly.
The graphics are sort of low high quality and lag a bit, however the general aesthetic of the sport may be very cool and cinematic. The voice appearing wasn’t the very best, however I by no means discovered it annoying. The controls are additionally quite simple and straightforward, although one puzzle the place you management Mitch driving the automobile offers no directions on how to take action. For a superb couple of minutes I sat there having no concept what to do till lastly I pressed the ZR button to speed up. Most controls are dealt with with the left analog stick and A button, so I didn’t even know ZR was an choice.
These points apart, Greatest Month Ever remains to be a really enjoyable recreation resulting from its touching story and troublesome selections. When you actually get into the sport, it helps you perceive how onerous parenting might be. It illustrates that what you do and say issues (fairly actually, as a result of your selections have an effect on which of 9 attainable endings you’ll get). Being a single mom might be very powerful, however Greatest Month exhibits there are at all times good moments inside the dangerous.
