Sometimes a game isn’t always aimed directly at you, though nonetheless, you enjoy it. I’m specifically talking about games aimed at kids, the likes of your Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and if we’re going for dark kids games, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and 40 Winks. Those were the games/nightmare fuel that I and many others grew up on. It is also why many of us “old” people like complaining about the current state of games, and specifically games for kids. The current state of “Child-friendly” games are Fortnite and other tripe filled with loot boxes and propaganda to propagate their young minds to win a legal battle. A disaster.

The reason I bring up those “days of yore” is their understanding of balancing gameplay and story for that “everyone” audience, as suggested by the ESRB. Spyro, as a kid it is: “collect gems, spit-literal-fire, and free friends from stone,” and as an adult, there is a touch more going on. Oddworld, as a kid, it was a farting alien, and as an adult, it is about slavery and the food industry’s mass production of meat. The reason you didn’t notice these things is that the gameplay is what pricks your ears up; You were given context, and you could move on to enjoy the game as is. Giraffe and Annika is a bit different, for better or worse.

I’ll admit I’m a bit late on doing this review, as during the month Giraffe and Annika released, everything under the sun was also released. The sad truth is, I’d found more comfort in playing anything else for whimsical reasons, most notably my chagrin at the gameplay of Giraffe and Annika. A collection of fetch quests with “lite” dungeon-crawling, topped off with a slightly dissatisfying rhythm game. That all sounds fine until you are in the dungeons, being chased by apparitions. All of which you can’t do anything about because turning around to hoover them up would be unkind.

This is what I was on about the other day, it’s the antithesis of fun and unrealistic. You don’t turn around and shout them down or berate them. There is no gameplay to the ghosts other than running away, which isn’t all that fun. Fetch quests on a good day aren’t much fun either, but when they are timed, and that clock is going faster than Usain Bolt, they are even more annoying than usual. For example, one of the early quests is to round up a collection of rabbits for dinner. No, not to eat them. However, once it hits 6 PM, you have to go to sleep and start all over again. In that context, a ticking clock isn’t adding to the game.

I think this is what, for lack of a better term, the problem is when it comes to Giraffe and Annika, little annoyances build up quickly. Swimming, if you can even call it that, adds two buttons, and one is to go lower while the other is to “surface.” The problem is you don’t surface, you swim slightly under the water still losing breath at a rapid rate early on. Unless you can find a perfect gradient, you are going to drown a child with cat ears. That’s also about the time the tone wavers between “for everyone,” and the point of killing kids or asking “why is your bikini top so low?” It isn’t outright sexualization, but it is certainly suggestive in some way or another.

Stepping away from the angry old-man shouting that games aren’t what they used to be, I like the art style of the story elements. Told through a comic book or picture book-style, it brings out an essence of a charming and lovely visual novel game with anthropomorphized people of varying degrees. It is a shame the actual world of the game doesn’t continue this, instead featuring a rather flat and boring world. The art-style of the scenes seems to be the only point I enjoyed, and I wanted to like Giraffe and Annika.

In concept, it is simple and it works fine enough. Though take a step back and look at what else it is competing with. Between remasters and the resurgence of the PlayStation 2 game, there is just a lack of anything in particular to say Giraffe and Annika is worth playing.

A PS4 review copy of Giraffe and Annika was provided by NIS America for this review.

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Giraffe And Annika

$29.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Beautiful art direction for the plot.

Cons

• Flat and lifeless world.
• Dull gameplay when there is some.
• Lurching tone.