After playing through Inmost, via Apple Arcade, I needed a happy game. Inmost was great but it was depressing. I wanted something lighthearted and happy. Takeshi and Hiroshi by Oink Games caught my attention, appearing to be the epitome of lightheartedness, as I scrolled through the Apple Arcade, looking for a game to play.
With claymation-style visuals mixed with an RPG experience, I was intrigued. However, I didn’t expect to like the game as much as I did. Nor did I expect to find one of the most unique resource management experiences I’ve ever come across in a video game.
Takeshi and Hiroshi is about two brothers, Takeshi and Hiroshi. Takeshi is a young teenager aspiring to be a famous game developer. Hiroshi is Takeshi’s little brother who looks forward to playtesting Takeshi’s novice games more than anything else.
Little Hiroshi struggles with unknown health issues that leave him bedridden or hospitalized. To keep his little brother’s spirits high, Takeshi developed a game that Hiroshi can play where he can be a healthy hero fighting monsters. The catch is that the game isn’t done and Takeshi is actually adding in monsters for Hiroshi to fight in real-time.
The game tells all of its story through animated cinematics of clay figures and soft sound effects that wonderfully compliment the gentle visual style. When Hiroshi gets his chance to play Takeshi’s game (in various stages of development as the game progresses), the gameplay begins.
As Takeshi, players must choose what enemies Hiroshi encounters and the order that he faces them in. Players must balance the difficulty of each encounter to ensure that Takeshi is challenged, but not enough that the enemies overwhelm his character.
At the start of each stage a random selection of enemies are presented to the player. Each enemy type has unique attributes that players must take into consideration when attempting to provide Hiroshi with the most entertaining experience possible. So even if Hiroshi survives all the stages in a level, if he wasn’t entertained and challenged enough, Takeshi will consider it a failure and the player will have to try again.
The more damage that Hiroshi’s knight takes during each stage, the higher his excitement level will rise at the end of the stage. If players select enemies that are too easy for Hiroshi, he may breeze through the stage and feel bored, causing the excitement level to diminish at the end of that stage.
Choosing the right enemy types is key to striking the balance between a too-challenging experience and a boring one. Learning how different enemies can be used to slow down Hiroshi without killing his knight was a fun experience. The system was one of the most creative resource management systems I’ve ever come across in the game.
The gameplay of Takeshi and Hiroshi is nestled between lengthy cinematics that reveal how Takeshi’s real-life experiences are influencing the development of the game he’s making for Hiroshi. While I found it interesting to learn how new mechanics of the game were thought up, players looking for a game they can just dive into and play may not enjoy Takeshi and Hiroshi as much as I did.
Without the background context, the gameplay may feel confusing or dull. While Takeshi and Hiroshi is a complete experience, I’d estimate that about 45% of the whole experience is actual gameplay.
I greatly enjoyed the, roughly, hour-and-a-half I spent with Takeshi and Hiroshi. While it’s a short-lived experience, the story is packed with the charm of Japanese animation, the gameplay system is fresh and rewarding (you’ll certainly want to make Hiroshi as happy as possible) and the claymation art style perfectly compliments the experience.
Take some time out of your busy day to relax with Takeshi and Hiroshi.
Takeshi and Hiroshi was reviewed using an Apple Arcade account purchased by Epic Brew.
