Disclaimer: This is about the Xbox One/Series release version
Adventure games like these are a dim in a dozen, or well several dozen. Simply letting its bubbly charm speak to me while the gameplay acts as a conduit for the wanderlust and whimsy it evokes from mostly taking photos. I see ghosts, I see a talking porcupine? It's not that clear either.
It's never fully clear just TOEM's story is about as it leaves a lot to be open for interpretation or that there is a story for the little guy. I am exploring each Scandinavian town, forest, or beach areas to take photos or help people/beings in various ways. All it asks is that any player take a closer look just to find what they're looking and something else that might be of use later on.
I like that it takes the joy and challenges of exploration for photography into a variety of interesting places, from the strange, wonderful, to slightly scarier ones. An amalgamation of different experiences is what really set this apart from the rest.
Now what happens when someone close to you gifts a camera? Do you go out into the world and take pictures wherever you go? That sounds absurd. Who would get lost out there far away from their home? Oh wait, this little guy did. And now they have a book to fill with all kinds of stories.
Yeah, it doesn't need to be in any way grounded to reality, because what's the fun in embracing a world where the imagination takes place and only sense you could find is in the wonderment of it all. From a mechanical standpoint, I explore with the character from a fixed isometric camera angle that only rotates, with the camera, it shifts to first-person view.
Basic controls, even having the ability to flip and do selfie takes. But as our character explores and meets people, they unlock various new features and neat interactions. And so the journey starts after leaving the house, ignoring a few people around me, I interact with a monkey on a kiosk who informs me that I need X amounts of stamps from people to move to the next town.
The old guy close to me already gives me a stamp, because before him I was looking around the place and just picking stuff up as well. Guess he found what he was looking for before giving me the quest. Great, I am off to a good start already.
After the monkey clerk gave me the seal, I finally arrived to Oaklaville on bus and the handholdings stop here. Some of the errands I do, require that I stay attentive to the surroundings, some things like finding an old man his favorite sock could be given by someone, it could be gifted by a scout who asked me to do his errands.
Or maybe a hedgehog who needs me to find his brothers to move a log out of the way, so that I can find said sock, or just forget the sock and do the other errands to get enough stamps for a bus to another town. But if I easily let that mentally consume me, doing all this stuff will be much harder.
That's the thing here, it requires some observation, cleverness, and resolve to figure out. And heck, I've even played a couple of games that needed me to exactly pay attention while a ghost shifts three cups around and ask me to find where the sock, and rock. He wasn't playing around either.
Some of these errands are really tough, and creates eye sore too. I backtracked so many times, I lost myself in each section of the level. I forgot who I was supposed to help or what I was exactly looking for. Stranger things often easily gets spotted but also are in places well hidden too. And then there's stuff that are so irritating because I couldn't find a clue, I just kind of give up on them. Like these two ghosts, one is asking me about getting chores done. Maybe I missed something, but I never got the idea, and there's this one having an identity crisis. Yeah, soon as I got enough stamps, I left this level.
I also didn't get the deal with the creature in the bush, everytime I step out of that cutout, he goes hiding back in. I took his picture, but who's he for?
I guess if I were to say how it got me to continue playing this, it's sort of the sense of discovery. I mean, I want to meet the next weird character, a ghost looking for something easily unattainable yet attained, and ah, I guess more old people's stuff?
The scenery change also extend itself to more and newer stuff to do. My camera finally got a horn installed after some trekking, I can shoo away some pesky seagulls. Interesting story on how I got it, I was helping a lighthouse guide turn boats lost in a storm back to the shore. Hah, take that my last optician, I do have 20/20 on finding all these boats now.
Afterwards, I managed to get past a flock of seagulls blocking a bridge and worshipping a giant sandwich with that horn. There are photo challengers out there giving out stamps if I can find the right photos on a showdown. Before all of it gets displayed in some museum room.
That's nice and all, but am busy here. I finally gave an angry ghost the sandwich he waited a long time for, helped a son cross to the otherside by getting there through the scenic route and taking down the cross-over bridge. There are bugs and animals needing to have their pictures taken too, just a side activity, but a few useful for stamps too.
These weren't incentive enough in the spirit of adventure for me, but the next stuff was. I interacted with a dog, and he started following me. I was given a tripod that I can use to keep the camera stationary while I moved elsewhere and took pictures of a shy hippo lady. Then with the dog, went underwater with a swimsuit or something, then started digging up treasures. As soon as I was done, I took the dog to its owner, and then went to a section where I used cranes to find treasure in trash.
And that's the thing. I like the personality TOEM has, the whimsy, the wanderlust, cartoonish artstyle and sound design straight from the 40's era, and some of the ingenious ways of using the gameplay to discover what's ahead and made me look forward for finding more of this.
It's not that long either. After prologue, I was shown that there are 4 towns to explore. I already finished 2 of them in 3hrs. Time to find out what's new in Logcity, and the one afterwards. I am aware that I don't have tolerance for figuring everything out, maybe I don't have to.
Thanks for reading this, sorry it took me this long to review the game, I got held up with treating my health problems in Kolkata. I am back now
