Giraffe and Annika Reviews

So, Giraffe and Annika. I am a bit mixed on this game, but I'm ultimately going to recommend it, and I'm going to explain why. Right off the bat, I will say I don't recommend this game as a game per se, but rather, as an interactive cozy experience. This is a game that is overloaded with charm with its artstyle, story telling, characters and so on, but gameplay-wise, it's just okay. In this game, you must go to 3 different temples with a variety of themes (forest, water and fire). Beating each one of them unlocks a new ability, after you have defeated the rhythm mini-game. At the end of each temple, there's a rhythm mini-game. It's very basic, but it does the job and it's fun and cute. You control Annika, the main character, left, center or right, and must both dodge and hit notes. You also have sliders that you must hold until they end. The game offers Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties. On my playthrough, I played all on Hard as the others felt a little too easy. At the start of the game, you can't even jump, which can feel a little weird, but at least that's the very first power-up you get, so it ain't that bad. The other two I won't spoil. The game doesn't end there, however, as there's still other things to do with the abilities you have unlocked, new characters you meet, and so on. The charm of this game comes from the anime-inspired cutscenes, that play out like a comic book. I absolutely loved it, and there's a lot of cuteness on these cutscenes. Outside these temples you have to go, you also get to help other citizens on the village, solve puzzles, and so on. Puzzles range from moving a crate to climb on things, finding a password-like clue to activate something, and much more. I don't particularly think that some of these were too hidden to discover and it was well balanced. There's also side-quests you can do. You can collect a certain type of collectible that unlocks artwork all related to cats. Not only you are looking these neat looking artwork, but you also get to unlock more things in the game by going to one of the houses and talk with NPC there. There's also outfits, they're mostly cosmetic, but there is one that does have a slight gameplay change. Your character portrait change on the pause screen according to the outfit, so that's neat! One of the quests requires you to take photos. Not only you need to take three mandatory photos, but you can also take photos of other characters in the game, and if you show them to this story-NPC, they'll mention something cool. Graphics-wise, well... it could be better. Of course I don't think graphics mean a better game, but for a cozy-experience like this, it could definitely be better. Some textures feel too realistic that may clash with the overall cartoony/anime atmosphere, as well some models that just look a little off. I would say Annika's hands are a good example. The in-game portraits for dialogue and the comic-book style driven story-telling is outstanding, however. Outside the mini-games, there's no real way to attack or anything. On the temples you visit, there are ghost enemies that can damage you, but you can simply dodge them. Later on there's also fire obstacles, that you need to dodge or jump over it. Some of the temples seem basically impossible to advance without taking damage, because of how the enemies were placed. Definitely didn't like this part of the game, having to hopeless dodge enemies (and projectiles), with my limited moveset. There IS a way to like attack, but it's strict to the mine-cart segments where you need to shoot rocks in the way and sometimes enemies, but that's it. And I think lastly, the Achievements. I guess you could see Achievements in many different ways, you can either see them as a way to increase the longevity of the game by providing challenges, or having a checklist of things so the player can check everything on the game. Sadly, I think these games achievements don't fit very well the whole atmosphere of a cozy and relaxing experience. There's a speed-achievement that you need to beat the game in X amount of hours (I don't like these types of achievements...). Other achievements require you to get S Ranks on ALL the Rhythm mini-games on Hard, which can be VERY difficult. It would be a lot more tolerable with was at least A rank, because that would mean getting full-combo, but the rank system is based on score, not exactly combo. So getting some off-beats can ruin your chances of getting an S rank. There is also one for getting full-combo on every song, though it doesn't specify if it requires to be every difficult or not. Closing thoughts, yeah. The game has some things that could be improved, but as an cozy-experience, I definitely recommend. Not something I would 100% due to the achievements previously noted, but was still an interesting and fun adventure. The game's developer is currently making a new game that seems to use a lot of the ideas of this game (such as the comic-book driven story-telling), but with more gameplay-aspects like combating, so I'm definetely looking forward to it. As for Giraffe and Annika, I give it a 7.5/10.