I’ve played quite a number of psychological thrillers on the Switch, mostly ones where you're cast as the victim for the most part, trying to avoid certain doom. The allure of these titles tends to be either some grim imagery, sudden frights, or just a pervasive sense of dread. What I really enjoy about Loretta is that it pretty well turns that typical experience on its head, where instead of playing the part of a victim you’re put a bit more in the driver’s seat as a spurned wife with murder on her mind. 

Set in the 40s with a decidedly noir sort of vibe, poor Loretta has had a rough time of things. Feeling trapped by life on a rundown farm after her husband was forced to flee from the city, cheated on, and generally feeling fed up because of her isolation and neglect, she decides to embrace opportunity when she sees it. In order to get to where she wants to be in life, her husband is simply going to have to go. Depending on the path you take to get that done, and how you decide to proceed from that point on, is where things get more interesting… and possibly a bit bonkers, depending on how unhinged you want to allow things to become.

Mechanically, for the most part, the game works as a classic side-scrolling adventure. You’ll need to move around, check out and perhaps grab some choice items you come upon, and then try to bide your time and figure out how you want to capitalize on the situations you find yourself in. Things don’t always have to get bloody, but the game is almost always glad to help you do so, you’ll just need to be cautious and pick your opportunities carefully since not everyone will be taken down easily, or without consequence. There are some sort of random mini games to work through periodically, and these vary in quality and feeling of relevance at times, but thankfully they’re most often just a mild distraction.

The real draws here are the game’s characters, overall narrative, and the possibilities it leaves open to you, to then explore and see how they play out. In general, your choices will tend to snowball into new problems of some kind, but it was refreshing to at least feel like there were multiple options on the table in most circumstances, and going dark was always one of the more appealing ones. There are different ultimate outcomes the story will arrive at, depending on the choices you’ve made, and that does add to replay value. Though going back to a decision point is relatively quick and easy for trying another option, keep in mind from that point you’ll need to play everything out until the end and that can take a while. I found it to be a refreshing excuse to play a bit more on the dark side of life for a while, and it was fun to be indulged, but I’d imagine for most this will be a love / hate proposition.