splendidland is so very good at condensing specific feelings into all of her art. Franken perfectly surmises the classic RPG experience into a breezy hour and a half journey. The art is fantastic, whether that be adorable overworld sprites, the dialogue portraits which bring to mind Leiji Matsumoto's work, or the battle art, which is simultaneously intimidating and cute, and all of this is delivered in a style that is unmistakably splendidland.

The gameplay surmises the content of an RPG in a manner reminiscent of one of my favourite Game Boy games, For The Frog The Bell Tolls, and much like that title uses every mechanic it has as a vehicle for telling jokes and had me smiling the whole way through. Highly reccomend.

Loved it. Franken is one of the most focused games I've ever played. It has the courage to strip away complicated gameplay in order to center the story, humor, and art in a way that works so perfectly - by deliberately simplifying the combat system, the game removes any pretense of trying to do something special with it, expertly setting your expectations and allowing you to clearheadedly enjoy everything else it has to offer. It's so naturally funny in a way that just makes me feel really nice. The length of the game is also a strength, the whole experience being just an hour long also contributes really well to the focus and makes it so easy to just enjoy in a single short sitting. Can't wait to see what else splendidland makes in the future!

CW: There is a minor "spoiler" about a translation error, but otherwise, there are no spoilers in this review.

I am a lover and hater of RPGs. Some of my favorite games are RPGs. And, some of my least favorite games are RPGs.

Franken, then, is a satire of something I both love and despise, and all of its critiques are ones I agree with. What's the problem with turn-based combat? It's rudimentary. What's the problem with progression? It's confusing. What's the problem with characters? They're plain and so archetypal that they could bend their back to make a semicircle and feel no pain. How does Franken go about critiquing these problems of RPGs, though? By being the most rudimentary, confusing RPG that has the plainest and most archetypal characters.

Franken's name really says it all. The game is frank and curt; no aspect of an RPG is sacred. Its humor is sharp and relies on character development and sudden tonal or situational whiplash; the jokes may not always be pertinent to the critique of a stereotypical RPG, yet I still enjoyed all of them.

However, how much of the game is intentional critique? How much constitute mistakes? I try not to rely on this distinction as the process of creation often incurs happy accidents which benefit the overall message. Franken's art straddles a line between critique and error with such a haphazard attitude that I'm not sure what to think. The game genuinely hurt my eyes to look at as the camera follows the character at the sprite's center, a point which changes during the up/down walking animation, so that it looks as though the world vibrates before your very eyes. Is that a critique? Is that a problem others experience in RPGs? That their eyes hurt looking at them? I, for one, have not encountered that problem even in prototypical RPGs. Playing Final Fantasy 1, I don't remember needing to take breaks when walking around the world map for more than a few minutes. I'm not so sure RPGs are games which hurt my eyes to look at more than Franken does, so how important is that critique? Or, is it even one at all?

I do not mean to say that Franken's art style is visually displeasing. Splendidland has a thorough understanding of NES sprite art, mimicking every aspect of their design, from the classic two-frame cycle to characters' body proportions. The sprite work is genuinely jaw-dropping. From the perspective of someone who has tried (and failed horribly) to make about 5 sprite-based games of my own that mimic NES or SNES artwork, Splendidland's artistic mimicry is so close to the original format that some may not notice the similarities.

I am also mixed on some of the game's dialogue, housing a few typos here and there, with one of them occurring with the beacon boys. The two characters have the same line in Morse code that reads, "over tsere." There is a missing "*" in the line which would change the "s" to an "h." Right now, there are three dots when there should be 4 if my assumption about this being a typo is correct. Enemies' attacks also replicate a common direct translation tactic, wherein the dialogue says "enemy's attack" instead of "enemy attacks." I assumed that this decision was a part of the critique as it is a result of directly translating from Japanese, a language that often defaults to nouns in a sentence more often than English does. The Japanese equivalent would read, 「敵の攻撃」("teki no kougeki" for those who don't know Japanese), directly meaning "enemy's attack." My question is, what is the purpose behind the critique of an RPG's translation? Is it lambasting the underpaid, overworked translators who would translate prototypical RPGs in the 1980s and 1990s? Is it instead lambasting only the dialogue by mimicking its awkwardness? Is it trying to lambast the structure of the Japanese language? I am not certain, and that ambiguity is not comfortable when a language's grammar construction or workers in poor conditions are the potential punchline to a joke.

For being a short yet concise satire, I think some of the minor intricacies of this game deserve more thought. The details matter in a game this brief because the details are what define the game, too. Details in sprite work are gorgeous and praiseworthy for their mimicry. Details in the comedy and placement of characters is praiseworthy. Details in even the musical choices and bestiary are hilarious and so integral to the experience. Please, please play Franken for its details and its intricacies, because they are what makes Franken such an honest critique of genre I hate and a genre I love.

This is not really a video game, but an experience. It was a fun hour, with a few good laughs.

Realistically speaking, I wouldn't grade it as some great game. There's no decisions, or strategy really. The only decisions you make are whether or not to talk to optional characters. XP is a bit of a joke and the game knows it, as leveling up does literally nothing. Every player will progress through the game in pretty much the exact same way.

Highlights of the game were most of the orb bosses, and well, the scorpions. And the ending.

Estando como estoy harto del meta humor en los videojuegos, Franken me ha caído en gracia de principio a fin. Lo más normal en juegos que pretenden hacerse los graciosos con respecto a los tópicos y clichés del medio o su propio género es que sean ejercicios de verborrea que intenta jactarse de estos lugares comunes sin saber cómo esquivarlos.

Franken no hace ni una sola mención a lo burdo del sistema de niveles, al grindeo obligatorio, ni al dramatismo impostado de muchos JRPGs post Dragon Quest. Simplemente se dedica a exponerlos sin dedicarles una sola palabra juiciosa mientras desarrolla su humor verbal de forma paralela. El logro del juego está en lo increíblemente similar que se siente su breve experiencia con respecto a epopeyas de decenas de horas. No es necesaria tanta chapa para matar a Dios. Es raro que una sátira tan obvia desprenda tanta humildad.

Franken is an interesting game. It's easily beatable in less than an hour, and is definitely worth the brief time investment. The gameplay is deliberately as simple as possible, which I don't strictly think is a benefit. The humor is pretty much the only thing the game has, and the writing is pretty funny. It's so blunt and absurd, and combining that with the scenarios, rpg tropes, and some funny music choices means I was consistently entertained. But I can't help but feel as though there were opportunities to spice up the humor through gameplay. Maybe some sort of twist on RPG gameplay to make even more jokes, instead of just making it one button. Cool game, I'd like to see more from this developer.

cute little game from splendidland (whose art i've always enjoyed; used to follow them in my social media days) with absolutely no depth to speak of... but i say this as a good thing. it knows what it is and simply serves to be a fun little breezy adventure and clear love letter to titles like moon and final fantasy iv. i like that it doesn't try to do some sort of moral/tonal twist at the end that completely falls flat - much like many of its 'quirky' mother-inspired contemporaries. it's just goofy and sweet and i like that. this is cool. it's like an hour long. check it out if you want.