Finding Frankie

Finding Frankie invites you to a twisted parkour game show, sliding, vaulting, and swinging through obstacle courses while a genuinely unsettling mascot antagonist gives chase. It's mascot horror crossed with Fall Guys, and this review's sample credits the concept with real, distinctive charm — right alongside a remarkably consistent set of complaints about how that concept is actually executed.

Willing to show real teeth

What earns this game its warmest praise is a willingness to depict genuine menace rather than the sanitized scares common in the crowded mascot horror space. "Besides the parkour, this game does something that I want more indie mascot horror games to do, actually show blood and creepy dead bodies rather than implying it. More indie horror games need to take from this and actually show how dangerous the threat is rather than just saying" it's dangerous, one reviewer writes. Another situates the game within the genre's recent trajectory thoughtfully: "Ever since Poppy Playtime came out, the mascot horror genre changed for the worst, we got Rainbow Friends, Garten of Banban, and a couple of other games. But we also got games like Indigo Park, Amanda the Adventurer... and now Finding Frankie, one of the bes[t recent entries]." A third simply sums up the hook: "I do recommend this game for people that do speed runs and/or people who play fall guys because this is THE fall guys horror game."

The parkour complaint nearly everyone reaches

Set against that praise, the negative sample converges with real consistency on the mechanics powering the game's core loop. "Overall very cool concept and very good graphics. However I can't get over how annoying all the parkour feels. The slide throws you so far yet so inconsistent on when it works. The vault is very temperamental on what you can get over and not," one reviewer writes. Another, evaluating it specifically as a parkour game against genre peers, is more clinical: "As a parkour game, it fails with simplistic mechanics that somehow feel clunky, lacks any feeling of speed you get with other titles, as well as the 'zone' feeling you get when chaining moves together, is also missing." A third describes a physical toll from the controls themselves: "this game controls like [an unpleasant analogy]... the game expects so much outta you to hit buttons... you have to hold shift to run with no way to toggle it." That's a genuinely widespread, specific pattern rather than a handful of scattered complaints, and it strikes directly at the systems the entire game is built around.

A value complaint stated with real precision

Length relative to price is the second dominant thread, and reviewers are unusually specific about the actual numbers involved. "You're paying [the full price] for about an hour of gameplay. I beat this with almost all achievements in 90 minutes, and during those 90 minutes I constantly searched every nook and cranny of each location for collectables," one reviewer writes. Another agrees with a slightly different tally: "Is it good? Yea. Is it a lil jank in some spots? Yea. Is it worth it? I don't know, Game lasts like... an hour?" A third, more sympathetic to the developer's effort but still critical, writes: "I wish steam had a neutral option instead of Yes and No. and that would be my rating. This game is quite an achievement to be released by a small team. Congrats on the release. Thoug[h the length doesn't match the price]." That range of tone — genuinely impressed by the craft, genuinely frustrated by the math — is worth taking at face value as an accurate summary of the game's central tension.

Real, reported performance problems

Beyond the parkour and length complaints, several reviewers document concrete technical issues distinct from those broader critiques. "This game is poorly optimized, while i was playing i experienced frequent frame drops... It even went to the limit of blue screening my pc," one reviewer writes. Another reports an even more severe framerate issue on capable hardware: "Has an unplayable 3fps on lowest settings possible, on a computer that can run max settings cyberpunk at 120 fps." These are specific, reproducible complaints worth flagging directly rather than folding into general "it's a bit janky" language.

A quality drop-off in the final stretch

Multiple reviewers specifically single out the game's later content as a step down from what precedes it. "The game is very well thought out, but the gameplay within the last three levels are extremely lazy. The lack of attention into the mechanics of the the last three levels and how well they mesh into the game completely take away the suspense and build up to the final level," one detailed reviewer writes. That's a fair, specific structural critique distinct from the broader length and control complaints — it suggests the game's ambition outran its available development time specifically in its closing stretch.

An unverified accusation, reported honestly

One reviewer describes the game as an "inauthentic abomination. Lots of plagiarism and very meek scares," without naming any specific source, work, or evidence for the plagiarism claim. This review found no independent way to verify or investigate that specific accusation and reports it here only as a single reviewer's unsubstantiated assertion, not as an established fact about the game's development.

What the achievement data confirms about completion

Steam's own figures support the "short but mostly finishable" picture that dominates this review's sample. An early exploration milestone sits at 92.9%, and even a mid-tier chase-sequence achievement remains a healthy 65.1%, consistent with most buyers reaching a meaningful portion of the content. The steepest drop comes at full toy-collectible completion, at just 6.3% — evidence of genuine optional depth for completionists even within a game whose main story most reviewers describe finishing quickly.

A developer still invested in the property

Whatever this review's mechanical criticisms, Finding Frankie hasn't been abandoned. The game's partner-events feed documents sustained commercial and platform investment: a dedicated speedrun-focused update, multiple rounds of physical plush merchandise released through 2025, and a console launch the same year — genuine follow-through for a small studio's horror title well past its initial PC release.

Final verdict

Finding Frankie brings real, distinctive teeth to the crowded mascot horror genre, earning genuine affection for showing danger rather than merely implying it — but its clunky, widely and consistently criticized parkour mechanics and a runtime most reviewers say doesn't match its price are fair, real limitations worth weighing carefully. Best purchased on sale for genre fans and speedrunners willing to work around its rough movement systems.