WU - Tengami

Haiku-Review:

a game with haiku's;
so befitting to review
through my own haiku

Additional Comment:

I love getting those little mail blasts on my Nintendo account listing the latest releases to the eShop. However, very rarely am I ever intrigued by anything shown. First off, anything available via retail will always be purchased via retail - if a physical copy exist, then a physical copy I shall have. Secondly, I can care less about Virtual Console games since I own all those actual systems and would just rather have the real thing, although a free gift of Earthbound versus  dropping $150 on the real thing. Ooh, that's a tough call. Fortunate for me, the Mother series has never interested me, so screw it. That's $150 saved and a free gift I can use on something else like Dr. Luigi or Pushmo World, two games that I can tell I'm going to have more fun with just by looking at them, even if I do own the original Dr. Mario which Dr. Luigi barely seems to be an improvement on. And thirdly, well most of the downloadable only games released to the eShop never seem that impressive. Most of the ones that really grab my attention, like Chariot, I've already got elsewhere. Every so often, however, something interesting nudges its way into the ongoing yawn-inducing titles. From the few snapshots provided and the brief summary, Tengami proved to be one of those rare games that gave me hope in an otherwise vast sea of possible inadequacy. And after watching the trailer, I was sold. Well, actually I wasn't sold until Nyamyam decided to have a little sale. Then I was sold.

Tengami's art direction clearly had me hooked. The paper thin graphics, reminiscent of the Paper Mario series, already had me, but it was the idea of the entire game being represented as a pop-up book that completely enamored me. Wrapping that all up in a skin of beautifully hand drawn classic medieval Japanese flair was simply the icing on the cake. And the music - oh... Let me lie down for a bit. I was utterly amazed when I found out the compositions were thanks to David Wise, but then considering two-thirds of Nyamyam has their roots in Rare, is it really that surprising? Listening to some of the pieces like, The Awakening or Ocean Breeze, though admittedly, that does have a very DKC feel to it, nope, still pretty surprising.

All of this beauty and wonder and rampant adoration was entirely based on some screenies and a trailer though. Like many, I passed judgment well before I had time to get down to the nitty gritty, which can be a dangerous. Graphics and music make for a fabulous façade, but if the gameplay, i.e. foundation, isn't capable of supporting all that beauty, it can become a tragic affair. And to be honest, based on what I saw in the trailer, I was a bit skeptical; after all, that's why I didn't purchase the game until a sale came along. It was easy to gather Tengami was a puzzle game, but based on the puzzles showcased in the trailer, I worried over how elementary they appeared.

There's definitely some game play issues with Tengami, however they're not all Tengami's fault. Much like several titles I've already dealt with on the Wii U, especially Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the GamePad decided to enter the mix with some of its gimmicky features. However, given the nature of Tengami, I can sort of give it a free pass. Coming from an IOS background, it's expected touchscreen mechanics - ah, those dreaded touchscreen mechanics - are going to factor largely in the gameplay. Oh, who am I kidding? Touchscreen controls are the only controls available. I find myself torn over this though. Again, like Captain Toad, I'm playing this game on a console that hooks to a TV, and I'll clear the air right now, this game looks incredible on a big screen. Only, I don't ever get to experience all that beauty exploded to incredible scale filling half of my living room wall. Instead, I'm stuck face down with my nose in the tiny screen of the GamePad poking and prodding the screen to solve puzzles and move our protagonist across the landscape. Needless to say, I'm totally disheartened over this turn of events. If I was on a tablet or some such nonsense where I had no visual alternative, I wouldn't care, but on the Wii U, I find myself feeling rather apathetic towards the game. All that initial adoration has washed away because I'm forced to use the butt end of the Wii U to enjoy this game.

But it's a touchscreen game. What do you expect? You're right, and maybe I should have read through the game's description a bit more carefully as opposed to simply finding myself awe stricken over some hand painted imagery. I'd still have a strong urge to play the game, but if I was fully aware that I'd never get to experience anything outside of the title screen and end credits on the big screen, I would have passed it up for something else. Maybe that makes me a shallow gamer, but then again, I've enjoyed my time playing games on a tiny screen with the Game Boy years ago. That time has passed.

Like I said, the touchscreen issues aren't Tengami's fault. If anything, they're personal issues I have with the Wii U and how developers choose to use the GamePad. Difficulty and game length, on the other hand, are far more related to Tengami itself. Tengami, presumptuously by design, is easy. The game's general lack of extended play only adds to the assumption that Tengami is built as a casual game and nothing more. I'd say the trade in difficulty was made for an engaging story, which given the pop-up book premise, sounds like a reasonable hypothesis, but unfortunately, the story is far more conceptual as an overall art piece. What I mean is that instead of a story in the conventional sense, we're instead treated to a profound haiku about loss and offered an opportunity to conjure our own interpretation of story based on the imagery or the act of the protagonist's journey. Otherwise, at face value, we're left with a tale of restoring a sakura - not exactly compelling content for an expansive work of fiction in this format. However, the game accomplishes its goal by setting in motion a chain of events that drives us though a few varied settings allowing us to solve a variety of puzzles.

Unfortunately, those puzzles span only three stages and I hesitate to call any of the puzzles in the first stage puzzles. The puzzles in the second stage live up to their name a bit more but are still on the easy side except for the last one, which isn't that it's difficult, but isn't exactly clear on what it wants you to do. On top of that, it took me a while to figure out that one particular location sported a different symbol than what I kept thinking it was. The puzzles in the third area began to feel like true puzzles with a couple of them forcing me to put on my thinking cap. This excited me as I began to have new hope for the game, but then, the game was over. I felt betrayed. Finally, Tengami was proving it's worth as far as gameplay was concerned and then simply decided it had enough. Again, considering the game comes from an IOS background, I probably should have known better, but this... This just reeked of disappointment. I can't remember the last time I felt robbed by the length of a console game. I'd say I hope they make a sequel because I genuinely want more Tengami, but then, I'm afraid they'd just make another twenty minute game.

Granted, my first playthough lasted approximately four to six hours because there were three puzzles that slowed me down to a crawl. However, on my second run - which I only did to collect the one stamp I somehow missed on my first run, which irritatingly enough was the very first stamp in the game - I completed the game in twenty minutes. And if the protagonist didn't amble along at a snail's pace, I'd probably have finished it a lot faster. In a way, I'm both happy and sad that I ran a second run because I got to see how little content there really is in this game. The same could be said for any NES game where speed runners can manage sub tens in optimal conditions, except speed runners are a rare breed and not everyone can master NES difficulty with such grace. Plus, puzzles are a completely different beast when it comes to game padding, except even with padding, Tengami is shockingly short.

However, I think Nyamyam had every means to create the illusion of length with the material presented if they allowed for more collectibles or at least made a better effort at hiding the ones available. As they are, the stamps are way too easy to find. The only reason I missed the first one on my first run is because I wasn't aware there were collectibles beyond the sakura blossoms until it was too late. I also believe if Tengami wasn't so insistent on holding our hand throughout the entire journey by showing us where all the interactive locales were, the game's difficulty wouldn't  seem so rudimentary. The puzzles would still be a breeze, for the most part, but it would cause us to better analyze our surroundings. Tengami feels like an evolutionary step in the point and click genre, except the sleuthing and experimentation elements have been stripped away. Instead, little bubbles constantly detail the path to victory: pull this tab, or poke this spot. I'd rather they have the pull tabs look the part, but blend as much as they can so they're not readily noticeable.

Tengami's a tough game to rank. I adore the aesthetics and the premise to no end but I find the technical side of it weak. Maybe it should have stuck to its IOS roots and never made the transition to the Wii U. Of course, then I'd never even know about it, and I do find the game to have sufficient merit. I think, despite it's IOS origins, Nyamyam should have done much more for the Wii U port. As is, it feels...I don't want to say an incomplete game, for it definitely feels complete, but maybe an inadequate game? It just seems like there should be more; like the game ended prematurely. I want to love this game, I feel I should love this game, but I can't, and I feel exactly the same way in regards to recommendation. In good conscience, I couldn't recommend it, not for purchase at least. Maybe if someone was at my house and I had the Wii U running I'd say, "Hey! Check this interesting little title out." I would, however, recommend that boss David Wise soundtrack.

Rating: 2.5 haikus out of 5