Frank and Drake from Chorus Worldwide and Appnormals is a rotoscoped branching narrative adventure on Nintendo Switch. Learn more in our Frank and Drake review!

 

Frank and Drake from Chorus Worldwide and Appnormals is a rotoscoped branching narrative adventure on Nintendo Switch. It presents to us a Rated M for Mature story in which two unlikely roommates find themselves at the center of a supernatural mystery in which your choices matter as they take you down different paths. The story is told by way of visual storytelling and written documents. Because of all this, you’ll be replaying the game to experience all of the different endings. Appnormals previously gave us emotional 2D pixel art adventure STAY on PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, which we got a chance to review.

If you haven’t experienced other games using rotoscoping, it’s an animation technique that traces over filmed footage for a hand-drawn look that is smoothly animated. Thanks to this, Frank and Drake has over 8,000 hand-drawn frames of traditional 2D art. Other games that use rotoscoping include Another World – known as Out of this World in North America – Hotel Dusk Room 215, Flashback, and, more recently, 2D sci-fi cinematic platformer Lunark, a game I reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

 

Frank and Drake won’t be bumping heads. Frank works during the day as a building’s superintendent – while also taking care of Underdog, a scrappy one-eyed, wheelchair-riding dog. He’s still recovering from an amnesiac episode from a year ago. Drake makes the most of the night as he works as a bartender due to his solar allergy. Drake’s been having some weird visions that will hopefully be explained as you progress through the story.

The game can be played either with the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con or by using the console’s touchscreen if playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode or if playing on a Nintendo Switch Lite. If using the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con, you’ll be moving a cursor around the screen and using the A button to interact. You will also be using the left analog stick or the D-Pad to walk through some segments.

 

There’s a set number of days to play during each run of Frank and Drake. You’ll be able to plan a bit for subsequent runs since each action you take will be marked on the Tree, which will be a visual aid for how there are different branching paths for you to take on. These choices will be circled on the chart, while the ones that you didn’t pick will be crossed out. That means you won’t be able to see everything during a single run. Oh, and there will be separate Trees for Frank and Drake.

Frank and Drake will be communicating asynchronously by using notes. As you play through each day and night part of each day in the overall story arc, you’ll learn new information about Frank and Drake and will have different options about what to write to the other character before moving on to the next segment. The choices made during each segment will also have an effect on what you can choose to write in the Post-it you’ll use to communicate with the other character.

 

If you want to 100% the game, this one offers some replay value for you to consider. There are more than 10 flyers to find, several silent movie cards with a bit of trivia on their back, as well as six different endings for you to reach. Since you can’t take every single path right during a single run, you won’t be able to make all choices in a single go, so you’ll have to play the game several times to see everything that this journey has to offer.

Frank and Drake is a rotoscoped branching narrative adventure with a bit of a supernatural twist to its story. You’ll be taking on this journey as you alternate between Frank and Drake, with one leaving messages to the other by way of Post-it notes and vice versa. It’s an interesting Rated M for Mature experience that is not going to be for everyone. Oh, and Drake totally talks to ghosts and visits his mom’s grave. You know, the usual. Frank and Drake is out tomorrow with a $24.99 asking price.

Disclaimer
This Frank and Drake review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Chorus Worldwide.