I played Attack of the Friday Monsters…. and I hate it. I hate when adults are condescending to kids or don’t respect their intelligence, and it’s a very strong ludonarrative theme in this game.
I went in wanting to love it, but I recognize I was only interested due to the aesthetic and the idea of it. A slice of life game with an ambiguous story and setting sounds amazing on paper. In reality, the game didn’t really do anything to earn my attention. It has good art and ok music and strong prose at times, but the end product goes nowhere. I couldn’t get wrapped into the story. More power to you if you enjoyed it, I just couldn’t relate.
I didn’t care for the story or the characters orbiting the main character’s life. Everything felt very surface level. Even when the game tries to be a little quirky with the character of Frank, it just feels very unnatural. The game tries very hard to capture an innocence or nostalgia, but it didn’t earn it from me. I know I’m not the target demographic but I am very open to empathizing with any character, they just didn’t give me anything to latch on to.
The pacing is a major problem due to the gameplay. Every 2 seconds walking and picking up a card sucks. it just doesn’t feel right, especially since you can’t see the shines half the time so you can’t avoid bumping into it. The card game is bad. Rock paper scissors didn’t work for Alex Kidd (possibly my least favorite game ever), it doesn’t work for Ayabe Kaz either. There’s no actual discovery or problem solving to be had, just go to points marked on the map in the order its presented. Something like scaring the bullies could have allowed for player choice or at the very least, challenged the player to figure out that they need to yell into the other end of the pipe, but instead it just instructs you to go from point A to point B then back to point A. Riveting.
Also the fact every conversation “unlocking” or “advancing” a new chapter feels very unnatural and like when a gatcha game is playing a dishonest psychological trick on you. Why does this exist? To make the game feel like it’s moving along faster? Because it feels more like it’s slowing the game down unnecessarily.
I went in wanting to love it, but I recognize I was only interested due to the aesthetic and the idea of it. A slice of life game with an ambiguous story and setting sounds amazing on paper. In reality, the game didn’t really do anything to earn my attention. It has good art and ok music and strong prose at times, but the end product goes nowhere. I couldn’t get wrapped into the story. More power to you if you enjoyed it, I just couldn’t relate.
I didn’t care for the story or the characters orbiting the main character’s life. Everything felt very surface level. Even when the game tries to be a little quirky with the character of Frank, it just feels very unnatural. The game tries very hard to capture an innocence or nostalgia, but it didn’t earn it from me. I know I’m not the target demographic but I am very open to empathizing with any character, they just didn’t give me anything to latch on to.
The pacing is a major problem due to the gameplay. Every 2 seconds walking and picking up a card sucks. it just doesn’t feel right, especially since you can’t see the shines half the time so you can’t avoid bumping into it. The card game is bad. Rock paper scissors didn’t work for Alex Kidd (possibly my least favorite game ever), it doesn’t work for Ayabe Kaz either. There’s no actual discovery or problem solving to be had, just go to points marked on the map in the order its presented. Something like scaring the bullies could have allowed for player choice or at the very least, challenged the player to figure out that they need to yell into the other end of the pipe, but instead it just instructs you to go from point A to point B then back to point A. Riveting.
Also the fact every conversation “unlocking” or “advancing” a new chapter feels very unnatural and like when a gatcha game is playing a dishonest psychological trick on you. Why does this exist? To make the game feel like it’s moving along faster? Because it feels more like it’s slowing the game down unnecessarily.