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.
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.