Tanuki Sunset

Tanuki Sunset is adorable, pretty as hell, conceptually fun, and annoyingly difficult. I want to LOVE this game, but I just kind of like it, and it comes down to the general concept of skating on a floating road.... It's like if every level of mariocart was Rainbow Road. That's a fine concept for some gamers, but for someone who wants to play a neon-soaked game where you skate as a trash panda to jazzy and synthy jams and chill the whole time, it's a mismatch. It would be great if the devs had a 'ghost barrier & chill' mode with invisible walls that just gently nudge you back into place. Barring that, I'll play it when I'm in the mood to get a bit frustrated rather than when I want to relax and vibe.

Really fun, relaxing, and satisfying. Not a game you can dedicate your life to, but a great one for blowing off some steam now and then.

Bing chilling, dam sure

TL;DR: 6/10. Get on sale. Very strange game held back by emphasis on randomly generated levels. Music is decent but playlist is short. I bought and played this game functionally on a dare, playing through the entire story in one setting. The amount of bizarre things that happened in this game out of nowhere gave it an almost surreal quality; A seagull gets a borderlands style intro, challenges you to a race, and then flies off after handing you set of wheels (Seemingly no other character is introduced this way). A full on "Human" standing around in an animal world complete with his Spore Creature Creator looking eyes. He says the same dialog every time you unlock new items, adopting a cadence eerily similar to the Truman Show's actors. Likewise, Bob the Sloth is in on this ruse, intent on lulling Tanuki (the Raccoon whose name is on the game) into a false sense of security to spend his Bits at the shop. Which does not make a lot of sense. As, when picked up, Bits make an eating sound. Why? Are we eating them? The game's final screen shows a small blurb about "should you not eat bits", so we must be. But then how are they being spent as currency? Are we simply bragging about how many we ate? Or are we depositing funds in the same manner a bird deposits food for its young? Out of nowhere towards the final act, you are suddenly urged by an ominous voice over the phone to do cool skateboard tricks to end up on "the cover". What cover? The cover of Fish Magazine, which has had its magazines plastered all over the game. But I don't believe the game ever had an actual line of dialog about that. Maybe Mom (who called Tanuki 3 times over the 4 hours of game I played) had something to say about it, but I didn't catch it over her complaints about Tanuki's dietary habits. As much as I've talked around the game's lore like it's some abstract thing, in actuality the gameplay is relatively bare. Fans of skateboarding games like Tony Hawk maybe disappointed at the lack of possibilities when it comes to Tanuki's alotted tricks, but there is an enjoyment to be found in the momentum the game has. However, it's held back by use of random generation; the track will change each time you fall, and there seems to be no prebuilt sequences to be found. Perhaps this was done to save on production time or cost, but the game would have benefitted Maybe not worth the $15 price of admission, but I'd suggest it on sale. Good for people looking for something relatively calm and noncompetitive, for people who enjoy streaming games, or for those who are really itching for ironic/surreal experiences.

yay

comfy game, very cute, very chill