Game Review: Tobari and the Night of the Curious Moon (PC)
Sekai Project is known for bringing mostly visual novels to steam, but this is their first attempt at publishing a game outside of that genre. Tobari and the Night of the Curious Moon marks the debut of this first step towards the companies' strides to off more variety to the consumer. It's a fun time, although it could use some polish.
Tobari is a Japanese indie platformer where you play as a girl with magic powers who is investigating the strange things going on in her town. Along the way she runs into various students from her school who are trying to get in her way for one reason or another. Gameplay mainly consists of jumping around and hitting enemies with Tobari's staff, or jumping on them. Certain enemies hit relinquish magic orbs that give Tobari new abilities. Many of them can be used to reach secret areas, while some are seemingly useless. It's kind of like Kirby in a way, but you can hold two powers in reserve. Unfortunately, you can't use your staff while in possession of two abilities, which is kind of a drag. Not to mention that it's sometimes hard to get rid of one, as the orbs are huge and are collected upon contact, thanks to the large hitbox. One missed opportunity is that you can't fuse two powers to make a new one. It might have made the more useless ones viable.
There is decent gamepad support, and you'll need it, as the levels are very platforming based. Levels start out pretty easy, but the game quickly cranks up the difficulty, making precision jumping necessary. The jumping mechanics regarding the enemies being used as springboards could be tweaked a bit though, as the extra height feels just a bit short for my liking. One thing to keep in mind is that melee or magic attacks will instantly kill your forward mid-air momentum, which can lead to needless deaths. That should be fixed in my opinion. The music is pretty cute and catchy, and the visuals are good for an indie project. Completionists will spend hours mastering the game in various ways as well, as there is an alternate ending and achievements to earn. There is no voice acting, but the writing is decent enough, with little in the way of typos. Despite the issues mentioned above, it's worth your time if you are a fan of platforming games and don't mind a challenge. The game is only 10 bucks, but there is a demo for players to check out.
The Bottom Line: A fun Japanese indie platformer that is worth checking out despite it's issues.
Acquisition method: digital code provided by Sekai Project.
Tobari is a Japanese indie platformer where you play as a girl with magic powers who is investigating the strange things going on in her town. Along the way she runs into various students from her school who are trying to get in her way for one reason or another. Gameplay mainly consists of jumping around and hitting enemies with Tobari's staff, or jumping on them. Certain enemies hit relinquish magic orbs that give Tobari new abilities. Many of them can be used to reach secret areas, while some are seemingly useless. It's kind of like Kirby in a way, but you can hold two powers in reserve. Unfortunately, you can't use your staff while in possession of two abilities, which is kind of a drag. Not to mention that it's sometimes hard to get rid of one, as the orbs are huge and are collected upon contact, thanks to the large hitbox. One missed opportunity is that you can't fuse two powers to make a new one. It might have made the more useless ones viable.
There is decent gamepad support, and you'll need it, as the levels are very platforming based. Levels start out pretty easy, but the game quickly cranks up the difficulty, making precision jumping necessary. The jumping mechanics regarding the enemies being used as springboards could be tweaked a bit though, as the extra height feels just a bit short for my liking. One thing to keep in mind is that melee or magic attacks will instantly kill your forward mid-air momentum, which can lead to needless deaths. That should be fixed in my opinion. The music is pretty cute and catchy, and the visuals are good for an indie project. Completionists will spend hours mastering the game in various ways as well, as there is an alternate ending and achievements to earn. There is no voice acting, but the writing is decent enough, with little in the way of typos. Despite the issues mentioned above, it's worth your time if you are a fan of platforming games and don't mind a challenge. The game is only 10 bucks, but there is a demo for players to check out.
The Bottom Line: A fun Japanese indie platformer that is worth checking out despite it's issues.
Acquisition method: digital code provided by Sekai Project.
Our Grade:
B-
The Good:
- The music is pretty great.
- There are some interesting powers to play with.
The Bad:
- Attacks stop midair momentum making for unnecessary platforming difficulty.
- Can't use your staff when you have two powers. Not being able to use spell fusions is a wasted opportunity.
Eric is one of the co-hosts of the RPGrinders podcast, as well as a freelance video game writer. You can follow him on Twitter @EricRPG .
