glimmer's 3-Day Video Game Review!

Little Dragons Cafe

Promised you on my latest stream that I would write this - so here it is!

I picked up Little Dragons Cafe on the day it came out from my local game store. I pre-ordered a copy of the limited edition that ran around $80.00. It came with a stuffed animal dragon about the size of my hands put together, some art cards, reversible box art, a CD, and the game (check out my unboxing video here). I won't go into if I think the special edition of the game I purchased was worth it, as I can always go into that in a separate post if I so choose to, but I will say that it was a pricey number for a game that not many people knew about. I still wonder who the target audience for the game is. Who picked up the limited edition (besides myself, of course)?

Right off the bat, you will notice the game's art style. It's really a big part of what it has going for it. The art makes me feel like the story is coming out of an old-fantasy style children's book - one your parents would read to you before going to bed. I wish the game designers played off that a little more, like maybe having pictures or an intro sort of like how Shrek the movie starts out. Okay, let's never mention Shrek ever again on these posts. Instead, you get dialogue over a black screen like in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, with a narrator reading out the kids' story. And by the way, the story is a big part of the game. I wasn't expecting that going into a game made by Talbot, ones working closely with Harvest Moon developers, but its a nice twist.

Gameplay is important too (as you know, this is a video game). However, I have a few gripes with how the game plays out. It is very repetitive, especially in the first three days I played it. I found myself bored while on stream and grasping at straws for what to talk about. The player goes around the same area every day to collect ingredients to cook with. This would be okay if it didn't take the whole damn day in-game, but it does. I also found myself returning home and not knowing what to do as I didn't collect enough of the recipe fragments I have to give to the old wizard in order to create a new recipe and progress the story. There are plenty of tutorial messages in the game, but no clues as to where these recipe fragments lie. If you miss a piece of the recipe, you gotta go back out tomorrow and find it or no more story progression. At one point in my last play-through, I missed one recipe fragment because it was getting late at night and I wasted a whole next day just grabbing that one piece. Sure, I collected more ingredients, but missing that one fragment locked the day in for me and I couldn't progress the story until the following day.

I'm a visual person and I can spot a UI bug from a mile away. This game has a lot of little bugs here and there, but the worst one by far is the camera. It spins around like it would in any 3D third person game, manually, but if the character is moving while you move the camera, it putters along like an old train. The way it stutters is pretty bad and it is very surprising to me that this wasn't considered a "must fix" before release. I can totally see people getting a little sick from the way it jolts along. Other bugs include characters walking through each other, shadows looking boxy or ugly in places, the run animation stuttering, items or objects clipping through other elements of the game, and the player's dragon disappearing (thank goodness for the whistle).

So, the game has its issues. Let me list a few more, then we can get onto more positives, because in all honesty, it isn't a bad game. I am not a fan of how slow the dragon runs or how you can't hold the pet button down to pet him continuously to increase his health (?). The player can only go so far in an area without saying "I shouldn't wander too far from home" due to the story of course. I've always disliked games that keep you from places without a real reason. At least in some areas of the game, a construction worker was working on an area so it made sense that the player couldn't pass them. I was also introduced to creatures that would attack me, which I assume my dragon can fight back when he's older. However, they only steal a piece of your food which doesn't seem like that much of a threat to me. Perhaps that is what they were going for?

A few more issues to discuss, and then we are home-free: continuing with the tutorials. The player is given tutorial messages in the beginning of the game how to run the cafe, but then doesn't get to actually run it until about day seven or eight. By that time, over the three days playing, I forgot exactly how or what to do with the cafe. Sure, tutorials can easily be re-watched/read through the book in your room, but why were the messages given to the player so early in the game? Most of the tutorial messages, however, are accurate and helpful. There are a lot of them, though, and the player needs to be sure to pay attention to them. Occasionally they will be given the same one twice or multiple times, for information I found obvious.

Here's what I love - the environment, the characters, and the cooking. This game isn't difficult, which is good because it appears to be a kid's game (even though again, did kids pick this up? Or just Harvest Moon or Indie fans?). As I said, it can be tedious with grabbing all the ingredients every day, but for the most part, it is self-explanatory. I was a bit confused the first few days because the tutorials gave me information about running the cafe, but otherwise I knew to collect ingredients around the land outside of my home and talk to the characters. And man, oh man, the outside world to explore is beautiful! I love that the player changes into another outfit, even though I hope there are more outfits to gain as the story progresses! Like I said with Shenmue, the game appears to have a lot of heart and soul put into it for the world and environment-building. The cafe looks like a cozy inn and the land outside looks like it came from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

The creatures around outside are super cool too! The ducks, the seagulls, the enemies (I forgot all their names, sorry), all look very unique. They mostly have patterns that remind me of a quilt, another childhood tie-in to the game. The characters the player meets are very fun and exotic too. I met three brothers who regularly visit the cafe, and they all have interesting personalities. I even met one walking on the street and he gave me some ingredients to help my cafe grow (which seemed to me, to be in his character to do so). The characters that join your cafe, like Billy and Ipanema are very interesting. After they joined the fray, I couldn't wait for the next cut-scene to see where the story took my character and her dragon next.

And OH! The dragon (I named him Sword by the way)! He is the cutest darn thing! The sound effects he makes are super cute. His poop becomes fertilizer for anything you normally collect from (so it's magical). He takes commands super easily (no training required) and did I mention he's ADORABLE? I read in a tutorial that the more food you give him of a certain type (spicy, sweet, salty, etc.) causes him to change color, but I haven't seen this occur yet. Still, it is an interesting and cool mechanic. The game doesn't force you to feed him every day, but I ended up stuffing pancakes, salads and basically anything I had made into his mouth, as he's not a picky reptile! Most of the dragon "commands" remind me of Tricky from Starfox Adventures, where there isn't much to do with him at the beginning, but as the game continues forward, the more there is to do with your little buddy.

Next I will talk about the cooking, as we are running a cafe after all. I chose the girl character (who I named Ginger) who's name is actually Rin. Her brother, Ren (that's right...I chose to name him Spice), helps in the cafe by doing...something. In the beginning of the game it is not clear. He tends to run around a lot and repeat the same thing over and over again to the player depending where they are in the story. Actually, all the characters do that...Anyways, the player can choose to take orders, place orders, bring food to the customer or cook. The player MUST cook a dish to add it to the menu, which makes sense in a real-life situation. You won't add a menu item if you didn't know how to make it. The menus for cooking are super cute and the cooking is very fun. It is a short rhythm game that is always the same for each dish, so it is easy for the player to memorize if they so choose to. There are five chef hats (like stars) to get from perfecting the mini-game, which is fun in itself. The cafe can also get a better reputation based on the quality of the meals and how the cafe is doing, which is something to work towards.

The best part about the cafe life is that you don't have to participate if you don't want to! On day 1 of the cafe opening (right after you gain a cook character), I found myself out gathering ingredients, mostly because I didn't know that my cafe opened that day, and only was warned my kitchen wasn't doing so hot because my team members were slacking off. So, I teleported home (which doesn't take up time - thanks to this no realism part of the game), talked to them and they got back to it. I went back out to collect more supplies. I think its a clever way to incorporate many players with different likes and dislikes (example: I don't like puzzles in games, so I was always forced into them in the older Zelda titles, but not in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)!

Many activities the player participates in, such as fishing, taking orders from the cafe, cooking, gathering ingredients, and more, are all easy to do. I never found myself frustrated with the game, just a little bored in the beginning. However, by day three of my play-through, more into the story and more invested with the growth of the characters (will Billy learn to work harder at the cafe?), I found myself wanting to play more and more. I'd say its better than the newest Harvest Moon that has come out, and unique enough to play for a new experience. If you like that Diner dash-style of game, but also appreciate a scripted story, this is the game for you. I may end up picking it up later after I beat it on the PS4 for trophies (I did this for Harvest Moon: Light of Hope too 'cause I'm crazy).

To finish off, I go over the pros and the cons. I really do like the game so far, and I hope you will check out my stream next time I play (~7PM EST every Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays)! I had an issue with my elgato game capture HD tonight so I won't be able to stream tonight. Sorry everyone!

Negatives (in no particular order):

1. Repetitive (collect-a-thon) gameplay.
2. Must-collect items or no story progression.
3. Buggy - visually.
4. Dragon's run speed is too slow.
5. Cannot pet dragon with the hold of a button.
6. Enemies don't really seem like a threat.
7. Tutorial messages may appear more than once.
8. Tutorial messages about how to run the cafe appear too early in the game.
9. Character's dialogue is repetitive unless the story progresses a day.

Positives (in no particular order):

1. Beautiful, unique art.
2. Reminds the player of childhood wonder in storybook form.
3. Tutorial messages are helpful.
4. Player can easily re-watch cutscenes and read tutorial messages again.
5. Easy to hop into and learn.
6. Cute outfits.
7. Storybook environments.
8. Fun, interesting characters that keep pushing the story forward.
9. Adorable dragon that requires no training.
10. Fun, short rhythm mini-game for cooking.
11. Don't like that Diner-dash like gameplay? You don't have to participate when you have a crew!
12. Good mix or "realism" and easiness for the player.

Love,

g1immer