Frogsong Reviews

Do not get tricked buying this because of the cute style. Played 20 minutes, and the protagonist introduced himself, and I quote: "non-binary, and I use they/them" pronouns. The dialogues with NPCs feel like talking to a kindergardener. 3/10, only for pretty artstyle. Just requested a refund.

Frogsong is a top-down action adventure game about an underdog who seeks to make a name for themselves against the wishes of society. Except everyone's an amphibian. The gameplay loop is quite simple: Go from point A to point B while hacking through all the insects in your way. Talk to some frogs. Find secret paths, do the occasional puzzle. Works well enough. [h2]Pros:[/h2] [list] [*]Lovely artstyle. Almost everyone's a frog, but the character designs are still very varied and expressive. The music is also very beautiful. [*]I enjoyed the very down-to-earth dialogue. Chorus doesn't clinically rattle off every exact bit of religious text and information they know, they explain some bits thoroughly, and awkwardly summarize other half-remembered bits, because that's how most people remember things. And the way every frog talks about their day-to-day life, their loved ones, their hobbies, etc. makes the world feel very lived-in. [*]Interesting worldbuilding. They utilize the frog perspective very well, and things don't feel like just a shrunken Legend of Zelda. The culture and religion feel very... froggy. Size is a very big deal given the variety in frog size, and comparative potential largeness of insect opponents. No one's bothered by the rain. One frog is [i]almost[/i] certain as to what a Squirmle is. It makes [spoiler]the reveal that the frogs' religion was just the misinterpretation of a human grave particularly shocking and effective.[/spoiler] [/list] [h2]Toss-Ups:[/h2] [list] [*]Dreary themes of racism (speciesism?). It's a bit of a headscratcher that everyone seems to accept Chorus as non-binary no questions asked, but is wildly over the top racist. Things do thankfully get better in this regard. [*]Game's quite short. I 100%ed it in 5 hours. [/list] [h2]Cons:[/h2] [list] [*]The combat is incredibly dull. Enemies are just blocks of contact damage that walk towards you for the most part. The only strategy is to just mash attack while trying not to bump into them. Given combat makes up the bulk of the gameplay, that's pretty bad. [*]This is very noticeable for the bosses. Almost all of them have glaringly obvious blindspots they can't damage you if you stand in. It's hard to believe that [spoiler]you need assistance against the first phase of the final boss when he can't even hit you while you're behind him.[/spoiler] Them not being hard isn't necessarily bad, I just find it odd that [spoiler]Devil Soldier[/spoiler] is the [i]only[/i] boss in the game that covers its flanks. Meanwhile, in comparison, [spoiler]the final boss does screen-wide random projectile spam that never hits you because the targets are random.[/spoiler] [/list] I get the impression Frogsong is meant to be one of those "wholesome brain-off" games. It seems to do that decently enough. I enjoyed it overall, and would recommend it to said audience. But I do think the actual gameplay could be better.