Just Ignore Them review for PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Switch

I?m of two minds when it comes to Just Ignore Them. It?s a point-and-click adventure that places a huge emphasis on its story, yet it often feels like the game is in such a hurry to get from Point A to Point B that it omits huge chunks of the narrative, to the point that it barely makes sense. On the one hand, I kind of wish the game had actually told the story that it was seemingly trying to tell. On the other hand, however, what is here is so lousy, I can?t say I would?ve welcomed the game being any longer than it was. It?s a real dilemma.

Then again, who am I kidding? It?s really not. Just Ignore Them has enough problems that even with a complete story, I can?t imagine it would be any more worthwhile. The puzzles aren?t particularly challenging or interesting. There?s none of the bonkers logic that typifies some games in the genre — as easy as it can be to complain about combining random objects to solve nonsensical puzzles, at least they give their games some personality. Just Ignore Them has none of that.

It?s not very scary, either. While the game starts off with the protagonist as a young child trying to avoid monsters, it gives up on that pretty quickly, and instead goes all-in on the story and takes the main characters completely out of danger.

Which takes us back to the central problem of Just Ignore Them, which is that, as a story, it sucks. The characters are flat, bland and boring, feeling like horror movie tropes who barely even justify being called stereotypes. The dialogue feels more like someone took a script, ran it through Google Translate a few times, chopped out random sections, and then plopped it in here. There?s a beginning, a middle, and an end, except they have so little connection to each other, it?s hard to care.

I?ll note that Just Ignore Them might, bizarrely, be the victim of censorship. I found a PC playthrough that seems to be a tiny bit longer than the console version, which a) contains the occasional risqu? line, and b) fleshes out the dialogue enough that the game would?ve had a little more cause and effect going on — or, at least, would have at least explained some parts of the story so that they didn?t seem to come out of nowhere (though it still would?ve seemed fairly disjointed). I?m not sure why they would have been excised, since the random bits of vaguely suggestive dialogue were no racier than any of the dialogue that?s included in the console version of the game — plus we?re talking about a game that already has an M rating. Nonetheless, they?re not here, and the game is the slightly worse for it.

I mean, not substantially worse, since even with a plot that makes a little more sense, Just Ignore Them is still incredibly dull and entirely lacking in…well, everything. There?s no challenge, there?s no story, and there?s nothing interesting at all going on here whatsoever. Take the hint from the game?s title, and ignore it.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Just Ignore Them PS4/Vita code for review purposes.