The Big Con: Grift of the Year Edition (Nintendo Switch) – The test

After going out on computer in August 2021, The Big Con from the canadian studio Mighty Yellcomes to us today, in its Grift of the Year Edition, on our Nintendo Switch. The opportunity for us to return to this title which wishes to pay tribute to the years 90 and videotapes, magical artifacts of level 99 that only initiates can still master without danger. So this big scam, we are talking about the literal translation of the title, is it worth living? This is what we are going to see right away.

Video Kill the Radio Star

The Big Con is a story that tells us the adventures of Ali Barlow who tries by all means to save the video store of his mother, prey to the greed of a few loan sharks. It is not less than 97,000 € that it must find in just a few days to keep its local film rental. Because yes, dear reader, a few years ago, films were not downloaded directly to our 100 cm diagonal screens. You had to either wait for them to appear on a major channel, or buy or rent them on a medium the size of a large book called a “cassette”, incredible, isn’t it?

And it is precisely the shop that holds Mrs. Barlow, the mother of Ali. She helps her by advising clients on films that might interest them. For this, she does not hesitate to spy on their conversations to find the work that meets their expectations. This ability to let his ears hang around will be very useful to him since it will be his starting point in the world of scams.

Because yes, when his mother’s business is in danger, the only solution: to rely on illegality. Thanks to the help of an artist of the genre, Ted, we learn the tricks of the trade and we set ourselves a goal: to help him set up his great scam, hence the title, in Las Veganza, to then share the earnings and recover the family business. But to finance our trip from our small town of Lisbon, we have to start with the basics: pickpocketing.

From the streets of Lisbon through the mall of Mallton to the casino of Las Veganza, this activity will have a prominent place in our road trip. For the rest, we will have to let our ears drag to provide each anyone what he expects and thus recover a just reward. This can be in the form of hard cash, but it can also take the form of a code that will allow us to enter an otherwise unreachable place.

If most of the time, playing pickpockets is enough to unlock the next stage of our adventure, reducing The Big Con to a simple simulation of pickpocketing would be too simplistic. The pleasure taken in playing it is first and foremost in the multitude of thefts to be committed. For this, you have to invest in the dialogues so as not to miss anything. Of the collectables are also part of the game in the form of stickers or objects. Depending on our discoveries, we will be rewarded with valuable tickets.

Scams, crimes and botanicals

The title of Mighty Yell takes the form of an adventure game in which we will have to discuss, choose the right line of dialogue, collect the items necessary and succeed in the small mini games available. Stealing the contents of a wallet requires passing a gauge game. An arrow moves on a rectangle in which a small blue area shrinks over time, it’s up to us to release the button in the blue area. If this mechanism is simple and effective, it takes more and more time as we progress through the levels. However, it is possible to make it automatic at any time if too much weariness is felt. We can then concentrate more on the narration, but we lose the only difficulty of The Big Con.

Another mini-game is to blur, that is to say to ask for change on a large sum, then deconcentrate the counter to make it start again from the beginning despite the sum already garnered. Again, the idea is interesting, but the implementation is far too simplistic. Only two indications are to be remembered, a sigh and we tell a joke, an astonishment and we tell nonsense. This is more than enough to double our bet on each attempt. But we are still turning too quickly in circles.

Side quests will dot our adventure. They will ask us most of the time to reach such and such a place and then to find the right item. Nothing too transcendent except for the narration. References to years 90 are part of it. Whether it’s the graphic part, which recalls the design of Tees whose wearers were all the rage in the playgrounds, or the multiple objects that have now fallen into disuse, we navigate in a world so similar to ours and yet so distant.

Stop me if you can !

If from a content point of view and gameplay, the observation is rather pleasant, from a technical point of view, the result is much more contrasted. First there is the short lifespan. It’s entirely possible to complete this story in just five hours. And if it is nice, it is difficult to come out fully satisfied, as we always have the impression of doing the same thing throughout our adventure. the gameplay only renews itself too little and spending its time stealing and ripping people off without any qualms or remorse is not very rewarding either.

Handling is also questionable. If the basic actions are no problem, triggering a theft and starting a conversation are done with the same key. Too often the actions are confused and we have to try pressing the Y key several times, hoping not to restart the same dialogue for the fifth time. These dialogues, entirely translated into French, are of very good quality and most of the power of attraction of The Big Con comes from their humor.

The graphic part is much more polished. With a design straight out of Saved by the Bella sitcom for teens from the years 90, the sets are laden with detail and give pride of place to a deluge of colors, each stranger than the next. The result is a beautifully strange game that never tires and knows how to surprise us regularly by diverting posters of cult films, for example.

More troublesome, small bugs have dotted our gaming sessions. First there are the few lines of untranslated text, not really a problem, but never pleasant. More complicated, for each hour of play, one to two complete blockages appeared after an automatic saving. Fortunately, restarting the game sent us back to the launch of the missed skit. However, it is still unpleasant.

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