I was kind of surprised how Into this game I got, but I guess it does make sense. Adult coloring books are super popular, right? Maybe I should look into those because hot damn it was fun messing around with this game. When I was a kid and I got a coloring book, I'd go kind of crazy with whatever colors I liked instead of the colors that, well, technically made sense, and I felt like it was fun to apply the same philosophy to each screen. The fact that you get four colors for each area helps things still look kind of nice even if you decide to color the tree trunks green and the leaves yellow, you know? I ended up kind of approaching each screen as a puzzle to the point where when you get to make your own pallet, I ended up not really using it all that much because I enjoyed working with the tools I was given.
I probably ended up making things a little boring once I got the fill tool, though.... but at the same time, it made sense to me. I liked the bright, fairly uniform colors, and the only thing that ended up really frustrating me about the whole thing was that it could be kind of difficult to differentiate different objects with both controller and mouse. Sometimes I couldn't figure out how to target a trunk to color and would just color the leaves... and damn, the "draw a thing" segments were uh. Well, I'm actually pretty proud of a Dragon Quest slime I drew. But the "recreate these paintings" segments looked goofy as hell.
But I feel like that's part of the point, isn't it? I'm sure there are people who have made some fantastic works of art in this game, but I think bringing a sort of amateur-ish vibe to the game feels like it vibes with the Themes. Pizza (or whatever your favorite food is, I ended up naming them Sushi lmao) just kind of picks up the brush to be Helpful and isn't really a professional or anything. The themes here are real good, man, whether you relate more strongly to Chicory or Pizza.
I... kind of did art when I was younger, but I got discouraged because I didn't think I was any good. There were people who told me I was good, but like. They were family. Was it actually any good? I don't know. It was pretty How To Draw Manga flavored. I think someone was Real with me and that kind of discouraged me out of it, but was it Real or Mean? I guess Art is just supposed to be, you know, fun and personal expression... I feel like the art classes in this game actually did a pretty alright job of getting that across, haha.
But you do kind of want to live up to the Legacy of the artists you admire, right? Even if that might not be for the best? There isn't something as crazy as a Chosen One who colors the entire world, but man. There's good themes here, is all I'm saying. I Did Cry at the end. Both the Art Themes and the Depression Themes were Very strong.
On the more, uh, gameplay-ish side, outside of Coloring there's a lot of puzzles around trying to figure out how to traverse the environment, with the more abilities you get making it easier to get where you want to go and making it possible to find Secrets. I found it really fun! There's a lot of puzzle elements that interact with the environment in fun ways, like colored surfaces that touch the water bleeding into it once you gain the ability to start coloring in water, and clouds that you can use to traverse raining color out if you color them in. It's cute!!!
There's no combat outside of boss fights, which are Buck Wild, man. They start out Kirby endboss in terms of flavor and get wilder from there. You can say the game doesn't quite prepare you for them but they ARE basically still traversal based, more or less... the ones I found kind of frustrating ended up being the mirroring ones. Fortunately, the game isn't Mean about them and gives you generous checkpoints even if you don't mess with the difficulty options.
Anyway, I think it's a whole lot of fun! Definitely a recommend from me, whether you're Big Into Art or not. The world it presents is also really fun, with a bunch of cool ideas that it doesn't dig TOO deeply into but presents you in a cute way. Lotta good minor NPCs. My favorite location is Feast, which may be a bit of a Nightmare Area for some but was a complete delight for me, an insect lover.
I probably ended up making things a little boring once I got the fill tool, though.... but at the same time, it made sense to me. I liked the bright, fairly uniform colors, and the only thing that ended up really frustrating me about the whole thing was that it could be kind of difficult to differentiate different objects with both controller and mouse. Sometimes I couldn't figure out how to target a trunk to color and would just color the leaves... and damn, the "draw a thing" segments were uh. Well, I'm actually pretty proud of a Dragon Quest slime I drew. But the "recreate these paintings" segments looked goofy as hell.
But I feel like that's part of the point, isn't it? I'm sure there are people who have made some fantastic works of art in this game, but I think bringing a sort of amateur-ish vibe to the game feels like it vibes with the Themes. Pizza (or whatever your favorite food is, I ended up naming them Sushi lmao) just kind of picks up the brush to be Helpful and isn't really a professional or anything. The themes here are real good, man, whether you relate more strongly to Chicory or Pizza.
I... kind of did art when I was younger, but I got discouraged because I didn't think I was any good. There were people who told me I was good, but like. They were family. Was it actually any good? I don't know. It was pretty How To Draw Manga flavored. I think someone was Real with me and that kind of discouraged me out of it, but was it Real or Mean? I guess Art is just supposed to be, you know, fun and personal expression... I feel like the art classes in this game actually did a pretty alright job of getting that across, haha.
But you do kind of want to live up to the Legacy of the artists you admire, right? Even if that might not be for the best? There isn't something as crazy as a Chosen One who colors the entire world, but man. There's good themes here, is all I'm saying. I Did Cry at the end. Both the Art Themes and the Depression Themes were Very strong.
On the more, uh, gameplay-ish side, outside of Coloring there's a lot of puzzles around trying to figure out how to traverse the environment, with the more abilities you get making it easier to get where you want to go and making it possible to find Secrets. I found it really fun! There's a lot of puzzle elements that interact with the environment in fun ways, like colored surfaces that touch the water bleeding into it once you gain the ability to start coloring in water, and clouds that you can use to traverse raining color out if you color them in. It's cute!!!
There's no combat outside of boss fights, which are Buck Wild, man. They start out Kirby endboss in terms of flavor and get wilder from there. You can say the game doesn't quite prepare you for them but they ARE basically still traversal based, more or less... the ones I found kind of frustrating ended up being the mirroring ones. Fortunately, the game isn't Mean about them and gives you generous checkpoints even if you don't mess with the difficulty options.
Anyway, I think it's a whole lot of fun! Definitely a recommend from me, whether you're Big Into Art or not. The world it presents is also really fun, with a bunch of cool ideas that it doesn't dig TOO deeply into but presents you in a cute way. Lotta good minor NPCs. My favorite location is Feast, which may be a bit of a Nightmare Area for some but was a complete delight for me, an insect lover.