A Little Dragon Goes A Long Way
Fans of Harvest Moon have been in a bit of a dry spell. While the game has been re-branded as Story of Seasons, and a different studio has taken over the Harvest Moon title, there hasn’t been much innovation from either. When it was announced that the creator of the original Harvest Moon series, Yasuhiro Wada, was starting work on a brand new title, fans were more than a little intrigued. Little Dragons Café promised to be an innovative take on the farming simulator genre, focusing on character development as well as utilizing farmed ingredients to create dishes for the titular café. The game releases on August 24th, 2018, and while fans of Harvest Moon should be sure to give it a try, a number of design issues create a flawed experience that isn’t for everyone.
The game follows the story of twins Ren and Rin as they struggle to keep their comatose mother’s café running smoothly. This is all whilst raising a dragon, which a wizard has told them will be the key to restoring their mother’s health. As the days go by, a number of characters come to work at the café. The three employees come to play an important role in not only the story, but the running of the increasingly busy café.
The game is structured into chapters, each one representing a particular guest coming to the café and learning a valuable lesson over the course of several in-game days. This makes for some good pacing in the storytelling, with a clear focus on one character’s story arc at any given time. These special guests at the café have stories that range between light-hearted and heart-breaking, and there’s always a particular life lesson involved. Throughout these chapters there is the constant need for ingredient collection, and serving customers. The process becomes somewhat repetitive, but the rapid progression of the in-game clock ensures that each day is a bite-sized portion of everything the game has to offer.
Traversing Technical Issues
As the game progresses, new areas of the environment become available for exploration. While the dragon’s ability to push rocks against ledges is a clever way to open up new areas, the execution highlights the unresponsiveness of the game’s controls. The jump button works about 95% of the time, but standing against a rock or ledge reduces this to about 20%. Additionally, if the character isn’t positioned dead-center on the rock, jumping will almost always lead to floating against the ledge, unable to move until guiding the character back down onto the rock. I had to develop a surgically precise technique for these simple jumps which shouldn’t even be a conscious part of the gameplay experience.
The cooking aspect of the game is simple, and usually quite enjoyable. Recipe fragments can be easily found throughout the environment, or acquired by talking to employees. Any ingredient found by the player can be harvested from the garden or fish preserve located right outside the café, making it easy to maintain ingredients for any dish on the menu. The cooking itself is executed through a simple rhythm-based mini-game.
One missing aspect of this mechanic is the ability to adjust video-audio sync. Fans of games like Guitar Hero know all-too-well what happens when the sync isn’t just right; and every television/audio system is different. I found myself lowering the sound to a minimum and relying on visual cues only, because often times following the rhythm of the music lead to my downfall.
Graphics That Pop
From a visual standpoint, Little Dragons Café is a bit of a mixed bag. The art style is totally unique, and the character designs are top-notch. The dynamic weather and transitions between day and night feature striking color and lighting changes. The environment, as well as the plants and animals that inhabit it are brimming with personality and jaw-dropping beauty.
Unfortunately, the amount of pop-in is equally jaw-dropping. Right from the start of the game’s opening cut-scene, huge swaths of the plants/rocks/animals inhabiting the landscape can be seen popping in and out of existence. Worse yet, there are instances of pop-in which directly affect gameplay.
One particular fishing spot which contained an ingredient necessary for the game to progress was invisible. Until I walked the perimeter of the map and happened to get close enough for it to blink into existence, it was completely hidden.
Lost and Found
This brings me to my biggest issue with Little Dragons Café. The game’s progress depends on increasing a café reputation bar by completing the daily tasks of collecting ingredients and serving meals to customers. It’s a wonderfully simple way to gauge how successful one’s menu selection and ingredient collection habits are. However, near the end of each chapter it becomes necessary to find a particular recipe and the special ingredients for it. Without any sort of map, the game’s lack of instructions for ingredient locations can be frustrating.
Obtaining the special recipe also requires making a specific dish, sometimes described only through cryptic clues. Both of these components can lead to many in-game days without progress, and during these days spent figuring things out, the reputation bar is frozen. This lead to my abandoning one of the game’s core components, and completely ignoring the café; all without any consequences.
Gameplay issues aside, storytelling is where the game shines; though at times it seems unclear who the target audience is. While my initial impressions indicated that this game is ideal for young children, some of the dialogue is fairly heavy in subject matter and can involve the use of certain curse words. There aren’t any instances of mean-spirited dialogue without an attached lesson about why a character is somehow predisposed to feel the way they do, but such lessons might be too complex for particularly young players. I enjoyed the game’s dialogue, but those who enjoy stories about moral conundrums or political intrigue might find this game a little too quaint.
A Flawed Victory
Little Dragons Café is a game about inspirational stories, and that’s where it excels. The endearing purity of the main characters and employees provides a perfect contrast to the damaged attitudes of the special guests. I found myself laughing out loud in some situations, and feeling genuine sympathy in others. The gameplay components of harvesting ingredients and serving customers are sufficiently engaging to keep the player invested.
On many occasions I would tell myself, “I’ll stop after this dinner service,” then find myself still playing hours later. Certain issues can make the game feel like a chore at its worst, but the game’s storytelling is its saving grace. The high points outweigh the game’s flaws, but there are enough of them to keep it from achieving greatness. Little Dragons Café gets a 3 out of 5.
Want to try your hand at raising a dragon and running a café? The game is available on August 24th, 2018 for Playstation 4 as well as Nintendo Switch. It’s available in a standard edition for $59.99, as well as a limited edition including a plushie dragon, 18 character cards, and a soundtrack CD in a collectible box for $79.99.
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