A Bird Story

To the Moon’s pseudo-follow-up carries on its predecessor’s legacy of excellent sprite art, powerful music, and a narrative that’s both heartwarming and heartwrenching, but it’s also missing a decent hook. There’s no mystery and only a little conflict, which the wordless storytelling renders quite opaque. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure how the plot resolves itself. “Mundane” is probably the single word that most comes to mind. Aside from some striking imagery, A Bird Story’s premise is very clichéd, and the first half hour is slow even by the standards of exploration games – it feels much like the non-action parts of a David Cage game. It’s both touching and funny despite everything, but it’s clear that its creator does his best work with more complex, unorthodox material.