The World Next Door

It’s nice to have a pure puzzle game to review. Story: Once a generation a portal opens between the human world and a magical monster world and the two worlds host a festival where lottery winners from both worlds can visit the other. One winner, Jun, spends the day hanging out with her pen-pal Liza and her friends and while they hang out in a sewer level, a rouge monster ambushes them and Jun misses the portal home. But with her friends by her side and a ticking clock of her dying due too much magic, she is going to find a way home. It’s a pretty simple story. We find a macguffin early on which becomes the solution to the portal problem. We got stakes in the whole dying thing. And we got a friend group to both fresh out the world and for some comedy and teen drama consisting of the best friend, the shy friend, the smart friend, the aloof friend, the preppy friend and the jerk who they hang out for some reason. However, I must say the ending feels like there should have been more there. Early on your made aware of some missing people with one of them being Liza’s girlfriend and in the endgame we there is a shadowy conspiracy going on. The results of both are a little underwhelming with the missing person plot line being resolved in the credits. And while you do get some answers to the conspiracy, you can easily miss it because it’s locked by behind a choice between a friend and this mysterious guy who looks sketchy. And this is important plot stuff that you’re missing out on. Not helped that when you beat the game, reloading only plays the ending scene again.It’s one of those thing that would’ve been better if you didn’t have a choice at all. Especially since there’s only one ending. Gameplay: How to describe this game. Think of one of those match-3 colour games where you can also move tiles around for a bigger reward, while also dealing with enemies that want to burn you. Basically, the bigger you get you’re combo, the more damage you can do depending on the spell. Blue for an instant hit, Red for a fireball, Yellow to electrocute the floor(handy for melee foes), purple for a slow moving ball that can make enemies slow, and Green to heal yourself. You can also get your friends to help with their own spells by arranging white tiles into certain patterns but I found it easier to use the basic spells as you just need to connect more than 3 for them to work And the enemies will keep you on your toes with guys that throw fireballs or ones that run in close to slash you and later on, a foe that can also use the same spells you use. The bosses are also a nice change of pace, bringing their own gimmicks and attacks to spice things up like the first boss blocking rows with fire and then chasing you in the dark. But I thought the 3rd boss was a massive pain cause not only does he summon a buddy to help him, but I think he misses up the tiles so you don’t know what you’re doing, and he can do the slow spell and with his buddy, got me cornered a few times. It was defiantly the low point of the game for me. So that’s the gameplay. What about the stuff in between the dungeons back in town? Not much disappointingly. Aside from talking to your friends and other NPCs, there are some side-quests but they mostly just fetch quests. The only two that did anything different were Cerisse’s puzzle quest and Horace’s combat quest since they were more of the game I thought was enjoyable. Doesn’t help that the game is very short with 4 dungeons. Presentation: We have some Visual Novel styled cutscenes here and the art work isn’t too bad. Sure they still look mostly human with a few exceptions like Horace but I even lazier monster people in my life. I mean they at least gave them inhuman feature’s like different skin color, tails, sharp teeth, horns. At least they didn’t just put cat ears on someone and say that’s a monster person. As for the overworld art, the school area looks nice but the dungeons themselves are very bland with the second one being the best looking with the brown bookshelves standing out from all the blue. As for the characters, they look so small and chibi that I just want to pick them up and hug them to death. Muisc is good too. Got some nice tracks to listen to as you play. Verdict: The gameplay is really enjoyable, but the short length and ending might leave you going, “Where’s the rest of it?” 6/10