With its easy character designs and a sport world that usually seems like a younger child designed it by reducing up and sticking collectively totally different bits of coloured paper, Pikuniku typically seems like a online game adaption of a youngsters’s e book. It tells a easy story that does not all the time fairly make sense, it is pointedly very foolish, and there are scenes inside it that appear to be based mostly on how a toddler understands the world. A large firm pays a city by making a living rain from the sky; a stylish nightclub will solely allow you to in for those who gown “cool” by carrying sun shades; you play a sport somebody “invented,” however which is, basically, simply basketball blended with soccer.But Pikuniku (Japanese for “picnic”) by no means feels prefer it was designed particularly for kids. It’s a sport about battling a company takeover, and the writing has the playful, sarcastically irreverent tone you are extra more likely to see from somebody of their 20s or 30s. But the infantile veneer is charming, and whereas Pikuniku is not the deepest sport round, it is beautiful, humorous, and engrossing in its personal bizarre manner.At the sport’s opening, your character–Piku, an entity made up of an rectangular pink physique with dots for eyes and two lengthy spindly legs popping out of it–awakens in a cave, prompted by a ghost to go outdoors. The opening tutorial does not take lengthy, as a result of the controls are easy: You can leap, inflicting Piku to spin haphazardly as he strikes via the air, you possibly can kick in any course, and you may curl your legs into your self and roll round in ball kind. You spend the remainder of the sport wandering via the small sport world, encountering characters and serving to resolve their issues till, ultimately, you end up preventing towards Sunshine Inc, a large company that’s sending robots all around the land to reap pure assets from the sport’s three areas.Progression not often requires a lot considerate effort. You discover the world on a 2D aircraft, speaking to as many individuals as you possibly can, kicking at every thing, and fixing goals as they’re handed to you. There are platforming parts that require some finesse, particularly once you discover a number of the barely tougher elective aspect quests that pop up all through the sport. Pikuniku is entertaining moderately than difficult, although, and even the toughest areas you will discover are unlikely to journey you up for longer than a couple of minutes. But that is to the sport’s advantage–it’s accessible to inexperienced and younger gamers, and I by no means felt like the sport would have been extra fulfilling if it pushed me tougher. Piku’s bizarre, wobbly stroll, his awkward leap, and the power of his kicks imply that simply shifting via the sport world is inherently entertaining.Your skill to kick every thing and everyone seems to be essential, and far of the puzzle fixing within the sport comes right down to kicking an object from one place to a different. The kick mechanic is nice enjoyable, with objects reacting otherwise relying on the angle and distance you hit them from, though there are occasional moments of frustration when, for example, a field will get wedged right into a nook and is difficult to get out. Getting caught for a second kicking one thing out of a nook, or coping with an object that isn’t behaving the way you’d like, can interrupt the circulation of gameplay.You can kick each character you meet within the sport with no actual punishment, which not often stops being humorous. In a number of different cases Piku must don totally different hats or use objects he has collected to push ahead. Again, the mechanics round this are fairly simple–if you see a blooming flower, for example, you recognize that you want to use the watering can hat on it as a result of a silhouette of that hat will seem above it. This makes it straightforward to maintain monitor of what you would possibly now be capable of do or unlock once you discover a new merchandise. It’s not the deepest mechanic, however it implies that discovering a hat or merchandise can spark fast pleasure once you already know what it’ll do.Pikuniku throws little minigames and oddities at you amongst all of the platforming to combine issues up. At one level early on, you are requested to attract a brand new face for a scarecrow utilizing the analog stick; later, you want to win a button-matching dance-off towards a robotic. There’s even a Dig Dug parody, which amusingly devolves into a little bit joke about how some retro video games do not age nicely. There are boss fights, too (there is not any fight within the sport in any other case), and whereas they don’t seem to be tremendous concerned affairs they use the sport’s easy mechanics to good impact.Pikuniku is a humorous sport on quite a few levels–the script typically undercuts stress and performs with tropes in amusing methods, the goofy manner you flip once you leap is a continuing supply of amusement, and the sport will typically throw you into unusual conditions with out a lot clarification. Mess with a toaster in somebody’s home, for example, and you will be hurled into the “toast dimension,” which is basically a dungeon space which you can escape by finishing the easy platforming problem inside. In one other occasion, you enter a pottery retailer that’s clearly begging you to smash every thing inside it–it’s a transparent Zelda homage, however the actual delight is within the product owner’s zen strategy to your destruction. Pikuniku is playful and mischievous. Even the soundtrack is splendidly kooky, and sometimes faintly harking back to Koji Kondo’s work with Nintendo.However, Pikuniku does not final lengthy. You can leap again in after the tip credit, which roll inside about three hours, and benefit from the aftermath of every thing you achieved, however even mopping up the previous couple of missions and making an attempt to gather all of the elective trophies scattered across the sport world does not add a lot. The world you are exploring is compact, and it does not take lengthy so that you can really feel such as you’ve seen every thing there’s to see. Pikuniku is so charming, and a lot enjoyable, that I needed extra time with it (although the ending is nice and completely bonkers). The sport wrapped up earlier than I used to be prepared to depart it behind, and extra story content material, or one other village to discover, would have gone a great distance.Pikuniku additionally comes with 9 two-player ranges, in addition to a multiplayer model of Baskick, the aforementioned basketball/soccer hybrid featured within the marketing campaign. These ranges are divided between co-op challenges the place Piku and his equivalent good friend Niku must work collectively and aggressive ranges the place you race each other. You can play with two indifferent Joy-Cons, and the sport holds up nicely on the smaller display for those who’re enjoying in moveable mode. This shouldn’t be a serious element of the sport, although, so do not count on a complete second marketing campaign. You’re unlikely to get greater than an hour out of those ranges, however its simplicity makes it ideally suited to play with a youthful relative or somebody with little gaming expertise.While Pikuniku is a light-weight expertise, it is received sufficient attraction and verve to stay with you nicely past completion. From Piku’s bizarre wobbly gait and looping jumps within the opening proper via to the sport’s humorous, weird ending, Pikuniku is extra gripping than its easy aesthetic and playful tone would counsel. It’ll make you are feeling like a child once more.
More