Review: Fall of Porcupine (Nintendo Switch)

In Fall of Porcupine, you play as a junior doctor, Finley. He’s an anthropomorphic pigeon who recently moved into the charming little town of Porcupine to work at St. Ursula’s hospital. After a bump on the head, he starts a routine of going to work, occasionally stopping by to socialize with the town’s anthropomorphic animal folk, and trying his best despite the bugs in the game sabotaging his journey from either progressing or being an immersive experience.

Ignoring the bugs for now, you can make Finley wander around town to chew the fat and investigate items or send him straight to work day-to-day. At the hospital, you are given patients to care for using minigames, like balancing pill effects correctly, holding down buttons at once to redress bandages, or examining the right body parts in the correct order. The minigames also get progressively harder over time. Throughout this daily routine, you come to know your co-workers, patients, and town folk, explore Porcupine, and learn that being a doctor isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. As Spider-Ham once said, “…you can’t save everyone.”

The graphics please the eye, boasting a gorgeous lineless art style that occasionally makes it challenging to identify jumpable surfaces. One minor detail that bothered me was the need to jump to ascend stairs instead of using the analog stick’s up direction. This issue was notable due to the frequent need to traverse the hospital’s stairs. The music and sound effects create a lovely and highly atmospheric ambiance, brimming with charm. The characters are distinct in personality and have depths that you can uncover.

So, about the bugs, they are an issue. On one occasion, I was softlocked in darkness from trying to open a door and had to restart; made even worse by the fact that there’s only one save file. Such bugs reminded me of KOTOR 2 on the Switch, but Fall of Porcupine is somehow worse because of its save features. I held my breath during each long transition, fearing being stuck in the black void again. There’s also lag, framerate drops, clipping, and freezing that leave the game overall feeling unpolished. On the positive side, while doing this review, it received an update that fixed an issue of a permanent cursor in the menu’s center. It’s highly likely that an update may fix the issues and bugs I mentioned before, and I’m unsure if this is only for the Switch version.

If it gets patched and put on sale, I’d say go for Fall of Porcupine, as it’s informative and memorable. But this charming, albeit short game with a lot of heart put into it deserves better than the bugs it has. I don’t think I can recommend it in its current state. The worse patient Fall of Porcupine needs to cure is itself!