This is such a cool game. I wish it was good.

Like, there are so many banger moments and I love the surreal vibe, but the archaic inventory management, scattershot storyline, and Super Paper Mario tier level design holds it back significantly.

Still, the surreal nature, endearing main cast, and the absolutely bonkers battle system keep this game in the green for me.

I think it was really the combat it was just so frustrating. It felt like the enemies did more damage during their mini game attack than when you do yours. Also coming back a few months later to write this and I don't remember much about this game at all. It's very sporadic and imo not worth the price point. I wanted to love it but I think the RPG aspects were poorly thought out and end up being overly difficult as some enemies end up just being damage sponges even after you feel you've overleveled. Anyways has potential but it's safe to say that Andy might as well bring the knowledge from this game to another.

A labor of love, for better and for worse.

Really wanted to enjoy this. I have a lot of fondness for any indie product, particularly one as ambitious as this. The gameplay is incredibly elaborate, with WarioWare style minigames personalized for hundreds of enemy types. Charming character design. Extreme detail put into all sorts of chance dialogue and encounters. Beautiful pixel art, fun music. A visual spectacle.

But the story... leaves me cold. Protagonist arrives in a new city, gets a miserable job, and follows the pathway flags of the plot. The character goals, the wider stakes, the motivations of the characters... it just kind of blends together into following directions. I have always adored stories where one hapless protagonist is dragged into an increasingly stressful and absurd series of circumstances against their will. But the silent nature of the protagonist means they don't get to really react to the world around them. Undertale works a lot because of how much the cast kind of projects onto Frisk. Characters in Knuckle Sandwich kinda go "damn, that was crazy. Don't really know your deal btw, let's get drinks when you're free." That in itself would be compelling, but the characters never get that chance to get drinks and let personalities shine. Events occur, in an order, without much heart in them. The dev team clearly cared about what they were making- all the effort and craft demonstrates that love for this genre and game! But its hard to feel the foundational beating heart in the story to propel the narrative. Characters follow the plot checkpoints when their personalities should be driving the plot forward on its own.

It sucks because I really do enjoy the gameplay but when I've committed nine hours, am only half way through, and I still don't care about the characters, I'm just sort of... done. I couldn't invest myself in someone's silly little world and its hard to tell if they failed me or I failed them.

there's a bug where the game plays faster if your monitor has a high refresh rate

so i played the whole game on 2.5x speed

and honestly? it ruled. more games should be 2.5x faster than they should be