Garten of Banban 3 is the best Garten of Banban so far. Whether that speaks to actual quality, or merely just being the tallest dwarf… okay, definitely the latter, but it at least made me question that to myself for a couple of minutes, and that says something. And not just about how it’s easy to overrate things when they exceed your expectations. The game is actually playable: unlike the previous games, all I had to do were to change some of the settings on PC and it ran fine the whole way through, and to be honest I probably could’ve gotten away with having them on high if it weren’t for me being paranoid that something was going to be all fucked up later. Many of the sections you go through feel improved as well: they’re not just killboxes that seek to make you reload as many times as possible, they’re attempts at setpieces. They’re clear, distinct moments with puzzles that, at times, can be loosely fun/satisfying to try and solve. The game’s also fairly decent at evoking stress — making the player fret as they try and solve the current section, making them dread what’s coming up — even if… it’s perhaps not quite in the way that was initially intended.
Because, while it’s certainly better than its predecessors, that still doesn’t mean it’s anything approaching good. The mission statement of this game, like Garten of Banban II, is still to stall for time in hopes of getting over the Steam refund threshold, it’s just that the developers are far more benign about it this time. Honestly it’s kind of funny to see just how blatant they are about it: the long pauses between lines of dialogue, the stretched-out gondola rides between each of the major areas, the way the game will try and randomly hide things like switches or items from plain sight, or how there are points where the game makes you jump off a surface to grab an item or hit a switch and you have to wrestle against the game to be able to actually hit it, it’s loosely a marvel to see how the game will stretch itself out next. There’s this one corridor where you have to open, like, eight doors in a row before you actually reach the next room. There’s another part directly copy/pasted from Garten of Banban II. I think my personal favourite is when the game tells you that the guy you’re looking for is on another part of the floor, but that there’s a BAD GUY on the same part of the floor you’re on and that you’re going to need to deal with him if you want to leave… only for you to immediately be told to leave and go to a different section of the floor in order to deal with him. It’s clear that these are all just excuses to extend the length of the game. And it’s also clear that the chops aren’t there to create an internal justification for any of itself, or to stitch together all these disparate sections into a coherent whole. But at the very least it’s much more friendly than II’s reliance on cheap deaths and extremely lengthy runs between checkpoints (even if there were sections that veered wayyyyyyyyyyyy longer than felt necessary or fun), and while there’s not quite a narrative structure, the way the map splits itself off into four distinct sections at the very least gives the player an indication of how far they are through the game, and, for better or worse, how close they are to the end.
I mentioned in my review for II that I did have loose hopes this game would be an improvement, based on what seemed like a capacity for humour combined with an inclination that the game started getting a bit more in on the joke from this point onward. Tragically, I was wrong on that: while there is inherent value in the voice acting, the limp attempts at jumpscares, and just how blatantly the game pads itself out, its attempts at actively leaning into this fall rather flat. Primarily because it manifests in spouting fanbase in-jokes far past the point where it initially could’ve been cute. In particular, the game loves to have Banban mention eating pancreases — a reference to the first game, where the game attempts to have its seemingly friendly aesthetics turn sinister by having a mural say “sharing is caring! Your pancreas is mine!” It was ridiculed, so the devs tried to do it ironically, but in the kind of way that mostly just kills the joke: especially when there’s a robot you have to push that spouts off a line about pancreases and another in-joke like ten times in as many seconds. The humour also veers… a bit long for its own good: the oft-mentioned car scene manages to hit some loosely absurdist beats before it… keeps going without much new material, only choosing to end about double the length it probably should’ve been. There’s one minor beat I thought was cute — a moment where the game tries to sandbag you in a way that’s honestly rather charming — but as a whole… man if this is the developer’s way of leaning in on the joke and trying to laugh with the people playing the game… I can’t really say I’m looking forward to that aspect anymore. I’m rather disappointed, honestly.
And overall… okay, yeah, it’s certainly an improvement, and maybe that, for a second, confused my brain into thinking “wait, is this really that bad? I don’t hate it, honestly,” but having gone through the whole thing, and having a couple of hours to put it all into perspective… it might be the least bad, but that doesn't make it any less bad. While it’s perhaps this series at its most playable, so far, it’s now gained an additional problem in that while its attempts at crafting a serious horror experience are ineffective as to cross the line into comedy, its newfound attempt at leaning into that comedic aspect falls far, far from the point where it could’ve worked. Given that I’m probably at this point committed to going through the rest of the series, though, I’ll at least take my blessings where I can find them: if this is the bar, the general structure, the way it’s going to pad itself out going forward, then I can’t imagine I’m gonna have that bad a time going forward. 3/10.
Because, while it’s certainly better than its predecessors, that still doesn’t mean it’s anything approaching good. The mission statement of this game, like Garten of Banban II, is still to stall for time in hopes of getting over the Steam refund threshold, it’s just that the developers are far more benign about it this time. Honestly it’s kind of funny to see just how blatant they are about it: the long pauses between lines of dialogue, the stretched-out gondola rides between each of the major areas, the way the game will try and randomly hide things like switches or items from plain sight, or how there are points where the game makes you jump off a surface to grab an item or hit a switch and you have to wrestle against the game to be able to actually hit it, it’s loosely a marvel to see how the game will stretch itself out next. There’s this one corridor where you have to open, like, eight doors in a row before you actually reach the next room. There’s another part directly copy/pasted from Garten of Banban II. I think my personal favourite is when the game tells you that the guy you’re looking for is on another part of the floor, but that there’s a BAD GUY on the same part of the floor you’re on and that you’re going to need to deal with him if you want to leave… only for you to immediately be told to leave and go to a different section of the floor in order to deal with him. It’s clear that these are all just excuses to extend the length of the game. And it’s also clear that the chops aren’t there to create an internal justification for any of itself, or to stitch together all these disparate sections into a coherent whole. But at the very least it’s much more friendly than II’s reliance on cheap deaths and extremely lengthy runs between checkpoints (even if there were sections that veered wayyyyyyyyyyyy longer than felt necessary or fun), and while there’s not quite a narrative structure, the way the map splits itself off into four distinct sections at the very least gives the player an indication of how far they are through the game, and, for better or worse, how close they are to the end.
I mentioned in my review for II that I did have loose hopes this game would be an improvement, based on what seemed like a capacity for humour combined with an inclination that the game started getting a bit more in on the joke from this point onward. Tragically, I was wrong on that: while there is inherent value in the voice acting, the limp attempts at jumpscares, and just how blatantly the game pads itself out, its attempts at actively leaning into this fall rather flat. Primarily because it manifests in spouting fanbase in-jokes far past the point where it initially could’ve been cute. In particular, the game loves to have Banban mention eating pancreases — a reference to the first game, where the game attempts to have its seemingly friendly aesthetics turn sinister by having a mural say “sharing is caring! Your pancreas is mine!” It was ridiculed, so the devs tried to do it ironically, but in the kind of way that mostly just kills the joke: especially when there’s a robot you have to push that spouts off a line about pancreases and another in-joke like ten times in as many seconds. The humour also veers… a bit long for its own good: the oft-mentioned car scene manages to hit some loosely absurdist beats before it… keeps going without much new material, only choosing to end about double the length it probably should’ve been. There’s one minor beat I thought was cute — a moment where the game tries to sandbag you in a way that’s honestly rather charming — but as a whole… man if this is the developer’s way of leaning in on the joke and trying to laugh with the people playing the game… I can’t really say I’m looking forward to that aspect anymore. I’m rather disappointed, honestly.
And overall… okay, yeah, it’s certainly an improvement, and maybe that, for a second, confused my brain into thinking “wait, is this really that bad? I don’t hate it, honestly,” but having gone through the whole thing, and having a couple of hours to put it all into perspective… it might be the least bad, but that doesn't make it any less bad. While it’s perhaps this series at its most playable, so far, it’s now gained an additional problem in that while its attempts at crafting a serious horror experience are ineffective as to cross the line into comedy, its newfound attempt at leaning into that comedic aspect falls far, far from the point where it could’ve worked. Given that I’m probably at this point committed to going through the rest of the series, though, I’ll at least take my blessings where I can find them: if this is the bar, the general structure, the way it’s going to pad itself out going forward, then I can’t imagine I’m gonna have that bad a time going forward. 3/10.