I got this game cuz I thought it was developed by Gears For Breakfast, but it seems like this was more of a Frog Vibes production with a Gears partnership
I won't say I was disappointed with this game, because I read reviews beforehand. And truthfully, I did enjoy the 7 and a half hours I spent with this game. However, I have to be honest and say this is not a "gameplay" game. This is a chill-out game with some repetitive tasks and a somewhat barebones story.
I'll start with what I enjoyed. Gameplay wise, the movement is simple but fluid, and Niko reacts exactly how I expect them to react. Going from point A to point B was always quick and satisfying. I liked a couple of the friend tasks quite a bit, like the Gamer Kid challenges, Little Gabi's flowers, the volleyball challenges, and bringing Louist to Schersal or whatever their names are. The visuals and music were beautiful and lovely, respectively, and the sound effects are maybe some of my favorite I've ever heard. The sprite-work in particular is very well done across all the characters. Playing this game put me in a good mood every time I started it.
The rest of the gameplay was frankly lackluster. Collecting bugs, doing the arcade challenges (all of them were painfully easy), fishing, making graffiti, etc. None of it was bad, and I liked each of them the first time, but by the end you could really feel the repetitiveness. Rather than doing the tasks because I wanted to, I was doing them for completion's sake. And while I said I love the visuals and sprite-work, those have their problems too. I can see what they were going for visually with the Bathhouse level, but I really do not like the end result at all, and 80% of the characters are drawn facing straight forward, making them look like DeviantArt characters put up for auction.
As for what I think is actually bad, I have to mention the hamster ball segments. Thankfully there's only a couple, but the ball controls like a nightmare and the camera is so uncooperative that it was starting to give me a headache. The one where you turn tiny in particular was agony. Other than that, I feel like all my problems were preference-based.
I don't like making the "did I get my money's worth" judgement when I'm done with a game, but I kind of have to here. This game is $25 and I paid full price. I think my money went to a good place, especially because the story is very obviously about an LGBT+ youth running away from home and trying to find a place to be happy and accepted. Assuming the people involved with the creation of this game have any personal experiences similar to that, then I'm happy to have supported them. If not, I'm happy to have supported someone willing to create an entire game about a pertinent issue anyways. BUT, as a game, I really can't say I got $25 worth of enjoyment out of it. I spent $11 on Journey and played it for 1 hour and 33 minutes, but the experience I got was worth far more than I paid. If I got that same level of experience here, I wouldn't even bring up the price at all, but I just didn't. I got the level of experience I usually get from an $8-10 game. And that's with 100%ing the game, which most likely added a good 2-3 hours of playtime by itself. I won't be missing the money I spent per-say, but I definitely thought about the price multiple times.
All-in-all, a good experience. The relaxing feel and charming vibe outweighed the negatives fairly easily, but I can't give it higher than a 3.5/5. Either way, glad I played it
I won't say I was disappointed with this game, because I read reviews beforehand. And truthfully, I did enjoy the 7 and a half hours I spent with this game. However, I have to be honest and say this is not a "gameplay" game. This is a chill-out game with some repetitive tasks and a somewhat barebones story.
I'll start with what I enjoyed. Gameplay wise, the movement is simple but fluid, and Niko reacts exactly how I expect them to react. Going from point A to point B was always quick and satisfying. I liked a couple of the friend tasks quite a bit, like the Gamer Kid challenges, Little Gabi's flowers, the volleyball challenges, and bringing Louist to Schersal or whatever their names are. The visuals and music were beautiful and lovely, respectively, and the sound effects are maybe some of my favorite I've ever heard. The sprite-work in particular is very well done across all the characters. Playing this game put me in a good mood every time I started it.
The rest of the gameplay was frankly lackluster. Collecting bugs, doing the arcade challenges (all of them were painfully easy), fishing, making graffiti, etc. None of it was bad, and I liked each of them the first time, but by the end you could really feel the repetitiveness. Rather than doing the tasks because I wanted to, I was doing them for completion's sake. And while I said I love the visuals and sprite-work, those have their problems too. I can see what they were going for visually with the Bathhouse level, but I really do not like the end result at all, and 80% of the characters are drawn facing straight forward, making them look like DeviantArt characters put up for auction.
As for what I think is actually bad, I have to mention the hamster ball segments. Thankfully there's only a couple, but the ball controls like a nightmare and the camera is so uncooperative that it was starting to give me a headache. The one where you turn tiny in particular was agony. Other than that, I feel like all my problems were preference-based.
I don't like making the "did I get my money's worth" judgement when I'm done with a game, but I kind of have to here. This game is $25 and I paid full price. I think my money went to a good place, especially because the story is very obviously about an LGBT+ youth running away from home and trying to find a place to be happy and accepted. Assuming the people involved with the creation of this game have any personal experiences similar to that, then I'm happy to have supported them. If not, I'm happy to have supported someone willing to create an entire game about a pertinent issue anyways. BUT, as a game, I really can't say I got $25 worth of enjoyment out of it. I spent $11 on Journey and played it for 1 hour and 33 minutes, but the experience I got was worth far more than I paid. If I got that same level of experience here, I wouldn't even bring up the price at all, but I just didn't. I got the level of experience I usually get from an $8-10 game. And that's with 100%ing the game, which most likely added a good 2-3 hours of playtime by itself. I won't be missing the money I spent per-say, but I definitely thought about the price multiple times.
All-in-all, a good experience. The relaxing feel and charming vibe outweighed the negatives fairly easily, but I can't give it higher than a 3.5/5. Either way, glad I played it