Wanwan Datte Uchu No Shinpi First Impressions

Wanwan Datte Uchu No Shinpi was released on May 22nd, 2024 and I completed it on May 27th, 2024. I probably would have cleared it earlier and through more ideal means (I had to use my phone for this) had the stuff going on in my real life hadn't interfered so much. But regardless I managed to finish it and that's all that matters

Despite my wild circumstances I really did enjoy this game. Out of all the Towelket games thus far I think this one puts the most effort into the actual gameplay. It goes way beyond just a simple interesting mechanic for the combat, and it really makes you feel more immersed in actually playing the game rather than just going through the story. I hope we'll see more of this effort in future games. Sometimes I feel like there's a tendency to either choose between interesting story or interesting mechanics when there's no reason they can't coexist.

Personally when it comes to interesting gameplay in RPGmaker games I could honestly take it or leave it. As long as it doesn't feel like a chore to play through then I'm fine with it. In general I don't expect much in that aspect as most people like to use RPGmaker to make something more akin to those old point and click adventure games rather than fully fledged RPGs. So I was pleasantly surprised to see how much effort went into making this game actually fun to play which is always a plus.

The story in this game is very simple but it's cute and charming. It sort of felt like a more modern version of Towelket 3. I feel like there were a couple of Towelket games that tried to replicate Towelket 3's tone but never quite hit the mark but this game managed to achieve that pretty well. It feels like with each new entry the games become harder to recommend on their own to newcomers but I think anyone can enjoy Wanwan without prior knowledge of the series.

The only complaints I have is that the first 4 hours felt more like a strange tutorial rather than part of the game itself. During this portion it feels like the story hasn't really started yet and things are happening solely for the sake of trying out gameplay mechanics that will only become relevant much later in the game. During this section you really only have Pon-kun to converse with and lead the story but on his own, he's not really interesting or funny. But once Mossara and the other characters are introduced the game starts to pick up.

Anyway it was a fun game. I easily prefer this over Towelket Kemono and I hope we'll see more effort put into making the gameplay more engaging in the future.