Work from Level-5 continue to appear in the West with great delay. The company introduced a role-playing game with elements of a bagel – Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold. The original project was announced in 2015 as an exclusive for the Nintendo 3DS console, which was released in Japan in 2017. A year later, in the same region, the company issued a reprint to Nintendo switch, and only now Western players have received a translated version with all the previously released additions in the kit.
The original idea was that The Snack World would be a huge media franchise, which, in addition to games, will include manga, anime, merchandise and full-length animated films. An important point was collecting – the studio launched special treasure chests, which included Snacks, analogues of Pokémon that can be called into battle, and Jara, weapons and character shields similar to key chains.
They were built in Nfc-chips working with the console and smartphones. All of his real collection could be transferred to the game. So small toys and cute plastic cards became faithful companions in battles with monsters and powerful weapons. Fans hunted for rare Jara in a used market, trying to win auctions on the Japanese Amazon.
Company director Akihiro Hino hoped that the project will be able to beat another brand of Level-5 in popularity – Yokai watch. In order not to compete directly with the “Youkai”, the developers chose a new graphic style, real-time battles and themes of fantasy artwork, combined with things familiar to the modern world, such as fashion trends, smartphones, firearms and grocery stores.
The start of the game was supported by thematic anime from OLMwho worked on Pokémon, Inazuma eleven and Yo-kai Watch, but something went wrong, and the project never managed to become just as successful. Perhaps the problem was the specific character design – the cartoon looked more like something between puppet animation and American 3D, rather than an anime familiar to the Japanese.
In addition, the company chose an outdated platform. The initial launch of Snack World on the Nintendo 3DS, which began to rapidly lose ground in the market, giving way to Switch, looked like an odd decision for a new big franchise.
The western release of the version for the Nintendo Switch has lost collectibles in the real world – figures and cards with NFC are not expected. The anime was translated for Australia, but the developers did not comment on its release in Europe and America, so in fact only the game got to us.
The story of Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold tells about the adventures of a hero who suddenly woke up in the magic kingdom of Tutti Frutti, where everything is going well and there are no serious problems. There is still no need to save the world, so the princess sends the character (maybe both a girl and a guy), in search of jewelry and moisturizer.
The developers make a strong bet on humor, offering a lot of stupid scenes, funny dialogs, funny situations and ridiculous characters (like a gay gin, a thick snow white and a Cinderella general with a minigun) who make fun of cliches of classic RPGs. Sometimes they do it quite subtly with a good pun and references to famous works, but often the scenes are so crazy and Japanese trash that the fat flows from the screen right on your knees.
Level-5 is not very tense with the presentation of the plot and the disclosure of the stories of the characters who remained in the anime, so basically you will watch funny dialogues with the main characters before and after completing numerous tasks.
The plot is divided into quests of the princess and additional heroes, where you can be given one or another NPC to your teammates, in addition to Snacks. Scriptwriters beat funny, but rather simple stories of these characters, as a result of which many of them can become new Snakes – a constant part of the squad, which expands as the plot ends.
All the tasks you get in Tutti Frutti, talking to the NPC in the palace, on the streets and shops of a small town. After that, you can select the desired quest, quickly configure the equipment for it and go on the mission itself.
Snack World is similar Fantasy life, but the developers wanted to make a game convenient for portable gaming by reducing the amount of back tracking, so they implemented a system reminiscent of Destiny and Monster hunter. Instead of huge maps that lead to more classic linear levels, you are immediately teleported from the city to a small enclosed location, where you need to complete the task.
Sometimes you have to find a way out into a new zone, but usually immediately after that the mission ends, and you automatically go to the city for a new portion of dialogs to pump and set up equipment for the next task.
