If you’re not interested in action and intensity, the Switch actually has quite an impressive array of games that you can enjoy while keeping your blood pressure lower. While cozy games are hardly exclusive to the system, it absolutely seems that developers have recognized the success these lower-stakes games have had on it this generation. Forgotten Fields very much taps into this more casual and story-focused mindset, though it still has some classic adventure elements to enjoy as well… though in a more watered-down fashion.

Playing the part of a writer who is struggling with frustrations around the blank page sitting in front of him, this is a bit of an odd adventure where you’ll actually spend time playing the part of a character within the story he is writing… so conceptually it does some interesting things. In terms of the story itself, with a central focus being on his anxieties tied to the impending sale of his childhood home, it allows for an exploration of how hard it is to let go of the past and memories of simpler times. As you move between the real world and the fictional one he’s creating, you’ll explore different aspects of his journey of coming to terms with it all.

The problem is that despite the ideas being notable, the execution of the gameplay itself is uneven at best. There’s just a certain wonkiness to many of the animations in basic actions and often the mechanics behind them that get to be hard to ignore. The fact that some of these clunky behaviors are often tied to what amount to pretty mundane tasks that don’t seem to serve as much more than time-wasters to slow you down and extend play time, without doing anything to serve the narrative, can also be grating. That leaves you with a bit of an uneven experience, mixing a worthwhile story with relatable themes with gameplay that fails to do a great job of holding up its end of the bargain. There’s something worth exploring here, but it will require a certain level of patience and understanding to enjoy it.