Title: void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software America
Release Date: July 14th, 2020 (NA)
File Size: 785MB
Review copy provided by NIS America
Another NIS game! Yes, this comes from the team behind The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince (review), and prior games not on Switch including htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary and A Rose in the Twilight. Indeed, that Firefly game has a very similar style of name. If anything this game and that are most similar I suppose (just guessing), hell even the character designs are identical.
A big twist is that this game vs. the prior ones has 3D bits in it in the form of the Mystery Dungeon/Rogue-Like gameplay sections. But there’s quite a bit more… like a Tamagotchi element!? Curious? Read on!
Meet Robbie and factoryAI!
On the surface, this game is a rogue-like dungeon crawler, but there’s more to it than that. You play as a tiny robot who meets a immobile computer named factoryAI who you befriend. factoryAI acts as the main voice in the story, who guides you on your adventure. From giving you objectives, to describing events. Particularly of the robot (who factoryAI calls “Robbie”!) as it can’t really “talk”.
Robbie in a dungeon, and he’s found some tasty food! The sludge adds to the texture.
The main point of the game is to look after a little girl (later named Toriko) who may be the last of the human race, who Robbie finds just as the game begins buried under some grass and dirt. But she’s unresponsive, so factoryAI instructs you to find food. This is where the dungeons come into play.
Meet Toriko, in her little home; the terrarium!
In these dungeons, you play them in the classic rogue-like manner. This is instantly familiar to anyone who has played Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Chocobo’s Dungeon, or the one that started them all; Shiren the Wanderer. The short of it, is that you move in a grid system, step-by-step. You have an energy bar which is your “hunger” bar in the other aforementioned games. You lose energy as you move and attack enemies. Also each action, be it a step, attack, an item usage, anything, is a turn used. The same applies to enemies who move when you do.
A MONSTER HOUSE! It was a graveyard smash!
There’s some twists here. First, when you level up, you always get a choice of two skills which you pick one of. They can be practically anything, but the higher your level, the better they start more commonly being, but not always. Skills can be Passive, always working, or Active, needing your input (like a new attack). You can also get stuff like a choice of a stat boost, or even more inventory space to carry objects, which is VERY crucial.
Here your choice of a boost upon leveling up. There are many more you can get.
The twist I mentioned before comes mostly from the fact that when you end a dungeon (if there is an end), your level always reverts back to 1. So you lose any upgrades you gained from the dungeon you were just in. But don’t worry, there IS a permanent upgrade system! So you find the food and try to feed the girl, but she won’t eat it, because as it turns out, she is VERY ill. factoryAI then next instructs you to find ingredients to make a medicine to cure her. This is where the next part; the crafting system, and that’s where the upgrade system comes in!
These crafts are mine! Well, Toriko’s actually!
When you go into the new dungeon to find the parts needed, you’re filling out a blueprint. Upon getting the parts and crafting the medicine, you then cure the girl. You two quickly befriend the girl, who factoryAI eventually names Toriko. Once you then get food in another run to feed her, factoryAI gets the idea to build her a home. Guess what, more crafting! factoryAI gives you more blueprints to complete. Now ot the upgrades; when you complete one of these blueprints and craft each item for the first time, you get a permanent boost. These are the boosts you get in dungeons, such as more inventory and better ATK, DEF, or HP.
Another shot of the dungeon, now with enemies and items, plus Tamagotchi!
Eventually, you get a device that needs fixing that factoryAI calls Penny. Once fixed, this becomes yet another mechanic; the Tamagochi! Now when in dungeons, you can monitor Toriko’s health, hunger, and sanitization levels. You can clean her poop remotely by using 30 energy in the dungeon. However, if she starts getting critically ill or nearly starves, you have to head back right away. You can do this from the menu via the minus button. You will “die” but keep all pick-up which get converted into resources used for crafting.
Here’s your in-hand inventory. The yellow items are semi-contaminated. The worse are purple.
Another bit is the contamination system. The world is filled with a plague-like fungus that will infect food and items. This actually benefits robots (you and the enemies), which makes highly contaminated enemies stronger. This helps you because your items will be stronger also as a result. The issue though; the food will be infected too. This of course is risky for poor Toriko. You can feed her infected food, and actually this is seemingly needed for the next phase of the plot; to find another cure and get a contamination monitor for Toriko. This means if you feed her too much contaminated food, well it ain’t gonna be good. That’s a lot to take in, but it all feels like it works in general and is pretty easy to follow along.
Food. Shame you have to throw out the extra stuff.
Graphics-wise it’s a very lovely game. All characters are 2D, even in the dungeons. They just have 8 directions they can face and it all looks very nice. The 2D bits are gorgeous and the 3D dungeons also look very nice too. The game runs at a smooth 60fps all the way through. This is honestly one of the most pleasing-looking games from NIS in Japan in my opinion. Not like that icky-looking Destiny Connect.
MY HEART!!!
Audio-wise, this game has very beautiful music. It’s got that sort of sci-fi new age vibe, especially in the 2D overworld you hang out in. The main dungeon music is also very nice. It all really fits the vibe and atmosphere. Very impressed on both the audio and visual front.
MY HEART… AGAIN!!!
Overall I was deeply impressed with this game. It’s definitely a small budget game which is the norm from NIS these days (wasn’t it always?), but this may be one of the smartest budget games I’ve witnessed. In that you can tell they made things tight and efficient. There is again a lot to take in and it feels like some genres mixed into one, but again it works. This game legit looks and feels like a labor of love from the team. I’d actually like to see what the team can do with a Disgaea 5-sized budget as long as they do it right again. It’s very cheap on the eShop like NIS’ other games like The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince and Lapis X Labyrinth. So the entry fee is small enough to make it an impulse buy I’d say! Top recommendation.
You’ll Love:
+ Beautiful world and very charming characters. You legit really care about what happens to this happy little family.
+ The game is very forgiving compared to other rogue-likes. You keep all pick-ups no matter what. You don’t really “lose” in the traditional sense, at least during regular dungeon gameplay.
+ Technically sound. 60fps, looks high-res enough (dunno the numbers).
+ Beautiful soundtrack. I hope to hear more from the composer in the future!
+ I love the originality of mixing these genres together. It does it without being confusing, or confused itself at what it wants to be.
+ Dungeon gameplay is very tight and responsive. Very fair gameplay here.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Not a whole lot. I fear of what will happen by the end to these poor characters…
– The food vault could be a bit bigger to hold more than two pieces of food. It hasn’t shown to be expandable yet at least.
– Toriko does get sick or hungry in particular a bit too quickly so you have to rush back when you feel you’re the destroyer of worlds in the dungeons. But you get some extra time as she will drop to half a heart (out of five) when her health gets critical, so you have a little more time when she’s at one heart.
– The level reset is a bit of a bummer. I personally would’ve preferred a traditional system here. But what’s here works enough. It’s cool getting a really good buff when they show up. So it’s not all bad.
Score: 9/10
