[Content Warning: Descriptions of Racism, Violence, and Hate Groups]
Best Month Ever! is the first full-length game developed by the Warsaw Film School's Video Game Directing program. Students, graduates, and industry professionals collaborated to make this narrative and choice driven experience that places players in a mixed-race family in 1960's America. While the game plays well and is visually beautiful, its story tries to tackle too much and the result is a loss of cohesion, nuance, and emotional impact. Due to the story being the primary feature of Best Month Ever!, this review will be heavily focused on it and will thus contain spoilers for some segments of the game.
The opening moments of Best Month Ever! establish that this is the story of Mitch, a young black man who is recounting the month that preceded his mother, Louise's, death. Louise was diagnosed with some kind of terminal illness, and knowing that her days are severely numbered, she takes Mitch, who is 8 years-old at this time, on a road trip across America to find someone who will be able to take care of him after she passes.
Best Month Ever! makes a valiant attempt to tackle racism, misogyny, and conservatism as it existed in 1960s America, but it falls short on many occasions and unfortunately perpetuates some of the stereotypes seemingly trying to be critiqued. There are cultural and racial biases that are perpetuated in a story from the perspectives of a single mom and a young black man in 1960's America, which makes telling a nuanced, sensitive story overwhelmingly difficult.
The main antagonist of Best Month Ever! seems to be the horrors of rural America and the American south, as violence and abuse are around every corner. Gun violence is particularly common in this story but is handled far too casually. For example, Mitch witnesses a murder up close early on and rather than show any signs of trauma, Mitch picks up and fires several guns with no hesitation. However, the most jarring and violent sequence comes when Mitch and Louise find themselves in the home of a local KKK leader. Louise kills the Klansman, then pretends to be him and, with Mitch in the car, drives to that night's cross burning and attempted lynching so she kills the other two members - and none of this has any impact on Mitch and is never mentioned again.
There are also a number of harmful stereotypes depicted throughout the journey: one example features two Native Americans and some peyote plants. After their car breaks down in the desert, Mitch gets bitten by a rattlesnake but is found and saved by two Native American men - and yes, they speak with the stereotypical monotone dialect made famous by dated western movies. The big issue with Mitch's rescue is that, in order to save him, the two men rush everyone into a hut and give Louise peyote for some reason. She goes on a meaningless vision quest, wakes up to a cured Mitch, and the two then leave without ever mentioning it again.
Best Month Ever! has its positive moments too, as the core of the story is that of a single mother doing her best to cherish her final days with her son, while making sure he will be loved and looked after when she passes. Unfortunately, this core sentiment is tainted by its various problematic moments and its inadvertent enforcement of harmful stereotypes. Best Month Ever! tries to tell a complex and loving story but the inherent cultural misunderstandings that come from race and nationality make those efforts fall flat and mar what is otherwise a serviceable narrative about love and family.
Best Month Ever! is available now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch with a PlayStation release sometime in the near future. Screen Rant was provided with a Nintendo Switch download for the purpose of this review.