Dordogne Review: A Beautiful Masterpiece in Watercolor (Switch)

Dordogne is one of those games that you’ll play and then remember for a long time, leaving you with a good feeling. It’s also one of those games that makes you reflect on your own life, your memories, your own feelings of nostalgia. Dordogne‘s release in the summer was perfect timing, a time when I myself feel nostalgic. If you want to know why a game like this will stick with you and why you should try it out for yourself, then you should read this review of Dordogne.

Dordogne is available on PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch for $14.99 USD.

Story – A Wistful Trip Down Memory Lane

The story of Dordogne may be familiar to you. A young woman called Mimi decides to return to her grandmother Nora’s house in France after her death. This task is important to her because she’s forgotten about her childhood, specifically when she spent time in France with her grandmother. She’s hoping a trip will jog back some memories, and give her clues as to why there was a rift in her family between her parents and her grandparents.

Dordogne smoothly reveals the events of the story through flashbacks, switching between adult Mimi and young Mimi. These flashbacks are triggered by exploring Nora’s house and interacting with certain objects, such as an old camera and a dilapidated kayak. There are cutscenes, but not so many that you think this is more of a movie than a game. This is most definitely a game, with plenty of interaction, so not only are you watching and listening to the story, but you are playing out the story. You really feel as if you’ve stepped into Mimi’s shoes and living her life. Her memories are shrouded in mystery, so you learn what happened alongside her.

Dordogne switches between older Mimi and young Mimi as she tries to recall her childhood memories.

Dordogne isn’t a very long game. It’s not super short, but I had this game finished easily in one day. The fact that it’s short isn’t a bad thing though – except I enjoyed it so much I didn’t really want it to end. Since it’s not a long game, there’s only a handful of characters you’ll get to meet and know. There’s Nora, the grandmother, who is a strong central character, the sort of person who passes on her wisdom. There’s also Renaud, a mysterious boy you get to know during the course of the game. A smaller cast in a not-very-long game was definitely a good call. I’d much rather get to know 2 or 3 characters very well instead of 10+ characters whose names I’ll probably forget. Dordogne allows you to easily become invested in all the characters in the game.

One thing I especially love about this game is its setting. For a few hours, I really felt as if I’d stepped into France itself, being transported there. Nora’s house was beautiful and fun to explore, as was the surrounding countryside, with its lush fields and hot air balloons floating in the sky. Having the game set in France was a good move.

Gameplay – Engaging and Hands-On

I have to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect when it came to the gameplay. I knew when doing this review for Dordogne that this was a game that emphasized on narrative, and was expecting a lot of button pushing and dialogue choices. Dordogne does have those things… but it also has a LOT more. Dordogne isn’t an interactive movie; it does function and play out as a video game.

Turning Keys, Cooking, and More

One gameplay aspect I adored in Dordogne was how interactive it was. This game went beyond pressing a button to, say, unlock a door. I was amazed when I had to pick up a key, actually insert it into the keyhole, turn it the right way with the joystick, and then physically push the door open. That’s the level of detail in interaction that Dordogne offers, and you see plenty of it throughout the game. You’ll fix up an old kayak, cook food for a picnic, and more. These nifty-little mini-game-type interactions aren’t overcomplicated, nor are they such a drag that the game stops being fun. 

There are lots of mini-game-type sections such as gardening and cooking.

Saying this, I did have one or two small hiccups when it came to these sections. First, you didn’t always realize that something had to be interacted with. You’d be engaged in some dialogue and then suddenly you have to select something. This isn’t always that obvious, even though objects to be interacted with shimmer and glow. More obvious instances showed you how to interact with something. I think there should have been more of a cue whenever you had just entered a section of the game where you had to click on or move something.

The other hiccup I had occurred when I was assembling a camera, and when I was in the process of attaching the cords, I wasn’t able to move the camera object around so I could attach the cord. This completely stumped me, so I had no choice but to exit and reenter my game. Fortunately, thanks to the good autosave system, I barely lost any progress and could continue without any further issues. That was the only time something like this happened, and I’m not sure if it was a flaw in the game, a bug, or something I had missed or was doing wrong.

Adventure Is Out There

Dordogne is, apart from being a narrative game, also somewhat an adventure game. You follow Mimi on an adventure while she stays with her grandmother, as well as the older Mimi in the present day, exploring her past. Dordogne does have a few adventure-like elements to the game, perhaps not to the scale of an adventure game such as Uncharted, for example, but enough to give you a feel of adventure.

At a few points in Dordogne, you get to paddle along a river in a kayak. This activity isn’t too physically challenging; you just push the joystick in the direction you want to go and Mimi takes care of the rest. Other games do have you pressing a button repeatedly to invoke the paddling motion, but I quite liked how Dordogne made it simpler. This meant you could concentrate on enjoying the scenery as you paddled along, enjoying the moment instead of focusing all your energy on getting the boat to move and not crashing into anything. I did feel the kayak sequences could have been a bit longer though.

Kayaking is a relaxing activity in this game.

Other adventure-type moments in Dordogne included climbing mountains and exploring caves. Again, this game isn’t Uncharted or Tomb Raider, but it’s still an adventure. I do kind of wish the adventure-exploring segments had been more like traditional adventure-platforming games. It just seemed like you followed the path and pressed a button now and again to jump. It felt a little stiff at times. Then again, this may have been because the game wanted to focus more on the story and the scenery in these particular sections.

Making Memories

There was another gameplay element I really liked in Dordogne. This was creating a collage in an old binder that Nora lets you have. At the end of these flashbacks that Mimi has, she gets the opportunity to create a new page in her binder. This involves adding stickers and photos you’ve taken with the camera, but also sounds that you’ve recorded, as well as short poems you can put together.

In every flashback, throughout the world, you can find stickers, as well as words to put in your poem. These stickers and words are tied to the flashback. The words used to make poems was especially interesting. Each word contained 3 varied sentences themed around that word. You could then use these sentences to make up a poem. I don’t normally write poetry, but I quite enjoyed this, and I found it an interesting way of documenting a flashback I’d just completed. It’s also a great way of the game letting you be creative, making the memory what you choose, instead of automatically creating one for you and always being the same one.

Putting a binder page together is a fun and creative way of capturing a memory.

The only critique I could really say about making your own binder pages is that I wish there was a bit more flexibility. You were only allowed one of each element; one sticker, one photo, and one audio recording. I can understand only one recording, but surely more than one photo and sticker would have been okay, not cluttering the page up too much. Even letting us have a max of 2 stickers and 2 photos would have been fine by me. Also, the poem had to be exactly 3 sentences long, and you couldn’t use more than one sentence from each word, so again it was a little restrictive.

Multi-Choice Dialogue

Being a narrative game, it’s expected that Dordogne includes some multiple choice dialogue, and it does it well. The way the choices are displayed on screen is pretty neat, looking as if they are part of the world instead of simply appearing in a menu. The text is displayed quite big as well (very big, in some cases), so you can’t easily miss it. The options are shown as one word choices, so you get a general idea of how Mimi is going to respond. I’ve only played through Dordogne once so far for this review, so it’ll be interesting to see what the conversation is like when different options are selected. In Dordogne, the moments when multi-choice dialogue is presented is well-timed because they usually appear after a big moment or towards the end of a flashback. It’s like you’re being given the chance to express how you feel about a moment in the story, rather than the game telling you how to feel.

Since Dordogne is a narrative game, there are moments where you can choose the dialogue.

Graphics and Audio – Like a Wonderful Dream

I’m not joking. Dordogne really does have a dream-like feel to it, which makes sense in the context of the story. Dordogne is about memories and nostalgia, and this is reflected perfectly in both the art style and the music. Even the sound effects are somewhat dreamy, with a slight echo to them. When you play Dordogne, it feels like you’re either having a lovely dream, or it’s such a wonderful feeling that it’s like you’re dreaming.

Dordogne has a distinctive watercolor art style that is reflected throughout the whole game, and no aspect of the graphics compromises it, including any menus or UI elements. The watercolor graphics may not be to everyone’s taste, if you prefer the photorealistic graphics of many games nowadays. For Dordogne though, it feels almost necessary. I think it definitely suits the style of the game, making everything feel more dreamlike. It’s like when you’re trying to remember something and it’s not exactly how you remember it, perhaps some details a little wavery. That to me is the feel that Dordogne‘s graphics give off. But whether you like the watercolor style or not, it in no way hinders the gameplay. If anything, it enhances it.

Then there’s the music. The soundtrack throughout the entire game really emphasized the dream feel you experience. It wasn’t spooky or haunting, but the music was uplifting, joyful, optimistic, as well as evoking a feel of nostalgia. It’s exactly the sort of soundtrack you would imagine when recalling memories.

Dordogne was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.