Towelket One More Time 6 Review

(Warning: This game contains content that may not be suitable for younger viewers and the easily disturbed. Please refer to the warnings at the bottom of → This Page ← Keep in mind that some of these topics will be mentioned in this review)

Towelket One More Time 6 is the fourth entry in the Towelket series, released on December 13, 2009. There are actually two versions of this game, one titled Towelket 6 and the other titled Towelket Ura. They're basically the same game, the only difference between them is that Ura adds an extra scene after the end of the game.

The story begins with Minpou, a young girl who, alongside her friends, is eagerly awaiting the birth of her younger sister. The baby is born without incident and Paripariume, Minpou's mother, asks God to watch over their little family. But little do they know: A certain alien race called the Pons have landed on Earth and plan to take over the entire planet.

With this being the fourth game in the series, how exactly does Towelket 6 compare to the previous games that came before it? With each entry being an improvement over the last, you would think that this would be the game that really combines all the qualities of the previous games that came before it and truly becomes something special...right?

Weeeelllll, I actually left something out of the little summary I wrote for this game. You see, in between these two events, a certain scene takes place. We get a cutscene of one of Minpou's aforementioned friends, Warawau, a girl who lives in the local orphanage. In this single scene, she calls over a stray dog, brutally murders it, and then proceeds to do "stuff" while looking over its bloody corpse.

No, this is not a spoiler. It happens within the first few minutes of the game. So, right off the bat, this game proves to be the most disturbing entry in the series so far. And while the idea of Kanao children's book-like scenarios mixed with explicit brutal horror sounds intriguing... This game unfortunately fails to fully commit to its own ideas.

This story has no shortage of disturbing moments that occur within the first hour of the game, only for them to fall completely flat on their face due to the fact that they're just outright poorly written. All of Towelket 6's flaws can be traced back to one thing: its lack of substance. This is especially apparent in the game's introduction, where it tries so hard to shock the viewer with an onslaught of horrific events, but simply lacks the self-awareness and subtlety to make them truly effective. The game tries to contrast this by really playing up the cutesy nature of the setting, but all that accomplishes is making the world around the characters feel hollow. The more creative and subtle ways in which Towelket 2 and Towelket 1 presented their events are just completely lost on this game.

Characters will go through horrifc things or even commit horrific acts. Yet these events might as well happen in isolation as the game is very quick to move on and almost forget these things happened entirely. As very rarely do these crazy events actually seem to have any impact on their character. It feels more like the game is showing you this stuff for the sake of showing it rather than having an actual purpose in the wider narrative. I’d even go as far as to say that these moments actually weaken what could have been a much more interesting experience, had the game not been so eager to show its hand immediately.

What follows after the game's introduction is what I can only describe as the world's most uninspired walking simulator. And believe me, I absolutely despise the term "Walking Simulator" as it's often used to undermine games that focus more on storytelling or even just different forms of gameplay other than standard combat. However, this game really has no story to tell, and the gameplay consists mostly of walking around generic maps while the characters in your party have absolutely nothing of substance to say. The entire RPG aspect of the game just feels strangely disconnected from the story. There are only a few bosses in TK6 and I’d say only one of them has any sort of real relevance to the events at play here. Engaging with the mobs scattered around the map is actively discouraged by this game, as the ways to get consumables and armor just become nonexistent for a while. This isn't something that's done for the sake of difficulty, as all the required combat is extremely easy.

For whatever reason, the enemies just stopped dropping items after the first hour, and you could go through area after area with no way to heal your party or even buy items. The only thing I can conclude from this is that the game just doesn't expect you to actually try to engage with any of the enemies on the map after the first few chapters.

Well, I mentioned that this game has no real story to tell. What exactly did I mean by that? The thing about Towelket 6 is that barely an hour into the game, it completely gives up on presenting an actual narrative. Everything the game initially set up just sort of gets pushed aside and forgotten, while the antagonists only ever become relevant again to get the characters from Point A to Point B. Along the way, we're introduced to a bunch of characters who exist just to have filler conversations on every map so you don’t realize how much nothing goes on between those points.

Unfortunately, I feel the cast end up embodying many of the things that drag this game down. Although Minpou, Warawau, and Nyanyamo are introduced as the main trio, the game is actually about Pucchi and Agochu.

The protagonist, Minpou, is initially intriguing because the game attempts to establish her as her own character. For most of the game, however, it seems like the story has no idea what to do with her. She'll undergo what seems like a significant development in one scene, only for it to be downplayed in the next. This game just has a terrible habit of not committing to anything in particular with her character.

Then there's Warawau. She might seem interesting on the surface; however, any attempt to deeply analyze her actions leads me to realize that she is much more nonsensical than deep or multifaceted. Many of her actions can simply be attributed to her being "crazy" and nothing more. There isn't a whole lot of consistency in regards to how she's written, and her actions often aren't motivated by any cohesive internal motivation. Rather, they're largely dictated by whatever is most convenient for the story at the moment.

Agochu and Nyanyamo are characters who have the potential to be better than they really are, but not much time is allotted to their development. Pucchi and the other tacked-on characters are legitimately obnoxious and take up too much screen time. They exist to perform one gag, which they will repeat endlessly.

Overall, the biggest crime of Towelket 6 is that it’s just kind of boring. It's a game that seems unsure of what it wants to be or say, yet insists you give it your attention. Aside from a few bizarre lines that made me laugh, the game doesn't accomplish anything it sets out to do. If it even set out to do anything in particular.

The general consensus among fans is that the first hour is the strongest part, and that the game falls apart once it moves away from that storyline. However, I have to disagree. While I can see how the initial characters' dynamics might be intriguing, I think many of the game's issues are apparent from the beginning and said issues are directly responsible for the storyline hitting a wall so early on. While it's easy to imagine how this game could have been if it had stuck to its original plot, nothing we got suggests that the game could have been far better than what was initially presented.

There are glimmers of decent ideas here and there, and I'd be lying if I said there weren't at least a few scenes that were somewhat effective. Unfortunately, these brief moments of quality don't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. So I can’t even recommend playing this game for that reason alone.

However, Towelket 6 is one of the few games with a direct connection to another game in the series. That game being Towelket 4, which is a much better game by far. Therefore, I can't suggest skipping Towelket 6 entirely. My personal recommendation is to either watch a playthrough on YouTube or play it and ignore all the Talking Points if you value your sanity. You might unironically have a better experience than most players that way.

I rate this game 1.5/5 Towels