Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale review | Thunderbolt

Josh Kramer, Thunderbolt writes:
The nugget of an awesome game lies at the core of Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale. Designed by Kaz Ayabe of Boku no Natsuyasumi fame (a peaceful, slice-of-life game series that was never released outside of Japan), Friday Monsters is pretty, quaint, relaxing and unique, but significantly lacking in gameplay depth and plot coherency. Things begin interestingly enough. You play as Sota, the fourth grade son of Fuji no Hana’s (a small town on the rural outskirts of Tokyo) resident dry cleaners. Immediately upon taking control of Sota in the interior of his parents’ house, the game’s charm and disarming nature become apparent. Sota’s house is presented, like all areas in the game, as a pre-rendered backdrop, but unlike the flat, sterile backgrounds common to early PlayStation games, the environments here are densely detailed and warmly inviting. From the rhythmic churning of an old washing machine to the organized clutter of dishes, books and other knickknacks, Sota’s world is a gritty and believable snapshot of a time and place, unhindered by the 3DS’s lack of HD fidelity, handheld nature or any other potential limitations of the system.