Official website
A few years ago, I took a look at Tomodachi Life. This summer, Nintendo released a sort of sequel to that game called Miitopia. While I have finished this game a while ago, I wanted to talk about a few other games before I wanted to talk about this one since I wanted to get my thoughts in order. So, before I keep delaying the review of this game endlessly, here we go. Let’s talk about the adventure Miitopia. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.
Make your own story, somewhat
So, the story of Miitopia is that an evil lord is stealing people’s faces. You get the task to chase that evil lord and get everybody’s face back. Now, notice that I didn’t say any character names. That’s because you can pick whichever Mii you have on your system to fill in that role.
You can always switch the roles during the game. So, if you want to change the character you picked for the evil lord or the king, you can change that in the menu system. I’m also quite happy about the fact that they added a lot of Mii’s that reference other Nintendo games or pop-culture. Since there are a lot of roles that need to be filled and if your friend circle isn’t that big, you can add those.
The story of this game is decent. I didn’t expect a lot from the story of this game but if you are a veteran RPG-gamer, you will get a: “I have seen this story mechanic before” vibe quite a lot. I have seen it multiple times. It didn’t bother me that much, to be honest, but I can see it being negative for some.
The writing has the potential to be hilarious. Depending on who you pick a character to fill in certain roles, laughs can be had. There are a lot of clichés in the story and repeated events. You will have to save some people multiple times.
The humor in this game is just great. There is a hero cat class and flower class. In converstations, they all behave like they are humanoid cats or humanoid flowers. The charm is big in this one.
To be honest, near the end of the game, I lost interested in the story. I have seen all the random events, all the random blurbs the characters say, unlocked almost every class until the end; I got felt the repetitiveness coming on.
Playing or watching
The game is extremely repetitive. Even in the story, when you leave an area, the same things happen. At the start, characters can have arguments and get jealous, but this happens less and less frequent when the game goes on.
At first, you would think that there is a lot to do in this game. But, the only thing you have to do is manage your crew, where you explore and choose what the main character does in battles. There isn’t anything more.
While playing, you would wish that there is a bit more to do or a bit more that could happen. Since the game isn’t challenging at all for most of the time. There are a few enemies that are too overpowered in my opinion.
This game is a casual game. I’m quite sure that this game isn’t going to interest a lot of hardcore gamers. Well, maybe interest but I doubt they will finish it. The potential for a great game is here. Here are a few things that could have made the game more enjoyable.
One, allow the player to control all the characters in battles or at least one. When the main character isn’t around and you are exploring an area, you have to watch the other characters battle.
Two, get rid of the health banana and MP candy mechanic. For real, this is a mechanic I barely ever used. Due to the magical salt, you get to heal your characters quite easily. I used this mechanic so much I had over 50 of each at the end of the game.
Three, have something else to do besides the constant exploring. Break up the gameplay with something else. You do have a Quiz Master running around but he doesn’t show up enough to have some variation.
Four, I wish there was an “auto-cure” item. Whenever a character gets a status effect, you can put it in the safe zone. In that safe zone, it can’t be harmed but it gets healed after a few turns. This mechanic made a few fights too tense and made me lose a few fights against those OP enemies.
Five, if only the game was less linear. In various areas, the game is too linear and you don’t feel like you are exploring the world.
In this game, you have also a friendship mechanic. When you arrive at the inn after you explored, the relationship between the characters improves when they sleep in the same room. When two teams meet each other, they all start at friendship level 0. While you have at least 5 or more with each team member. I wish there were other ways to improve your friendship level. I could explain this in more details but then I would spoil a lot about the story and I want to keep it as spoiler-free as possible.
One thing that disappointed me a lot is the fact that some mission areas get closed off for you after you have beaten the mission. So, if you want to beat every area to the fullest, explore it before you get sealed off from that area. I feel like I missed out on loot you can only get one time. You also don’t get a warning about this.
The battles, which is the meat of this game, are decent. While some classes are fun to play but they have a few flaws with them. I talked about the safe zone earlier. Another issue is that most of the characters that travel with you as an ally are too weak and you can’t see their health bar.
Every 50 enemies you defeat, you get a reward. In most cases, your salts will be upgraded to have 5 more uses. Speaking about these salts, you have a certain amount of salts you can use each time you explore. When you use one salt, you heal one point. When you are out of them, you have to survive until the end of that exploration. There are a few other salts as well, but I’ll leave those up to you to discover.
Presentation
So, in conclusion, the gameplay is pretty basic and I wish it was a more flesh out than what we got.
Difficulty-wise, this game isn’t too challenging. You can beat this game without any problems. In a matter of fact, I only 2 times in this game. (I’m not counting the times I died at the OP enemies here)
You can get 40 hours out of this game when you want to fully complete it. Otherwise, this game will take you around 30 hours. So, if the gameplay and story are just decent, why should you finish this game?
To be honest, the visual charm and presentation it brings to the table is what kept me going. Visually, this game looks amazing. The atmosphere is extremely well done. The theming of the world is in some cases pure eye candy.
In addition, the soundtrack and sound design are pretty well done. The soundtrack is one I would love to add to my library of soundtracks. Together with the sound effects, I was able to get somewhat immersed into the game.
While the story and gameplay lack the impact to make this game good, the visual presentation is helping a lot. The attention to detail in the animations is just a cherry on the cake. For example, when you run while exploring, the cat will run on all fours. Attention to details folks.
In terms of the controls and the UI, I have to say one thing. They are good. I wouldn’t have changed anything.
So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. It’s time for my conclusion and final thoughts.
Conclusion
The bad:
-Repetitive gameplay.
-The gameplay could have been a bit more fleshed out. (Not enough depth)
-The story is predictable.
-The game is a bit too long in my opinion for this type of gameplay.
-The game is too easy for veteran players.
The good:
+ With you filling in the roles of who is which character, the game can be extremely funny.
+ The visual presentation is amazing.
+ This game has a lot of charm to draw players in.
+ An amazing soundtrack.
Final thoughts:
This game is decent. It’s not good nor is it bad. I think the biggest issue of this game is that the gameplay is a bit too repetitive. While the charm helps this game a lot, it isn’t enough.
I got distracted by other games while I was playing this game and finishing it. I haven’t finished the post game, to be honest, nor am I planning to.
A lot of memories are created by playing this game but I wonder if I’ll be able to remember most of them if we are a few years into the future.
The game could have been so much more if it had more depth but we got what we got. So, yeah. So close but no cigar.
Score: 65/100
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