This is a little game I’ve been meaning to play through for ages, but I’ve never really gotten around to it until now (and receiving it for free on the Epic Games Store also made for a very nice excuse as well, of course ;b ). Just like I really love metroidvanias, I’m also a huge fan of 2D Zelda-like games, so this was something right up my alley from the start. It took me about 2.5 hours to beat the game and toy around with the post-game endless mode a little too.

As the title suggests, this is a game about Turnip Boy (a boy who’s a turnip) who’s unhappy with taxes. When the evil Mayor Onion uses some obscure tax law nonsense to steal his green house, Turnip Boy sets out on a document-burning adventure to get his green house back and take out the evil mayor. The game is extremely silly and wears its nonsense proudly upon its sleeve (as the title is ever so helpful demonstrating). There isn’t nothing behind its silly writing, though it is a little hard to deduce if the anti-tax/anti-government messaging of the game is more coming from the devs being anarchists or if they have more libertarian leanings. At any rate, just enjoying the nonsense and the delightfully strange world of the game is good fun for the few hours of fun the game will give you, and that’s more than enough for me.

The gameplay is a pretty straight forward 2D top-down Zelda like. You get several weapons and tools that you’ll use to solve puzzles both optional and mandatory, and there are lots of NPCs to talk to and do little sub-quests for, but this game isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel or anything. The combat was surprisingly challenging for what I otherwise would’ve expected, but this is far from a terribly difficult game. As long as you aren’t afraid to take your time with fights, bosses are generally really good about giving you health mid-fight to make even the tougher fights nothing too daunting. It’s a perfectly competent Zelda-like that doesn’t outstay its welcome, though it doesn’t have much to set it apart from better, longer games other than its zany concept.

The presentation is, like the rest of the game, perfectly adequate. The art style is simple and not flashy, but just stylized enough to be memorable where it counts. The music is similarly nothing to write home about, but it fits the mood of the respective locations nicely nonetheless. Not much to go wild with praise over, but not much to really complain about either, really.

Verdict: Recommended. I feel like I’ve repeated myself a million times saying this already, but this game is a short, sweet, and to the point that does a good job not outstaying its welcome. If it were any longer, I think they’d be laying the joke on way too thick for how much mileage their premise ultimately has, but the devs were smart in making something juuuust long enough that it doesn’t feel tiresome. If you’re a fan of the genre, this will be a fun thing to spend an afternoon on as long as you don’t expect anything super hilarious or life changing.