“Little Goody Two Shoes is unlike any other game I’ve played before.”
The trailer for Little Goody Two Shoes immediately caught my attention. A blend of anime, horror and old school RPGs? I’m in.
And although it wasn’t exactly what I expected, Little Goody Two Shoes is unlike any other game I’ve played before.
A Nostalgic Fairy Tale
You take on the role of Elise, a maid-of-all-work type, who does odd jobs for villagers around the small town of Kieferberg. Despite her usefulness, she finds herself an outcast among the community.
There are rumours of a witch residing in the woods surrounding Kieferberg, and there’s allegations she could be the source behind the village’s bad luck of late.
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One night Elise finds a strange, purple-haired girl, Rosenmarine, sleeping in her goat pen. This sets off a series of events that leads the villagers to believe that Rosenmarine could be the witch, or even Elise herself.
Story is King
Little Goody Two Shoes plays out in three different ways.
Overall, it is an adventure narrative RPG. Elise is sassy and sick of all the grief the villagers give her. This is a delight to watch. Elise’s journey and character development are easily one of the strongest suits of the game.
Although, her ultimate goal of fame and fortune takes a while to kick in.
It took me nearly two hours before I knew exactly what needed to be done before Elise could achieve her goals. After a while, a voice starts speaking to Elise in her dreams, identifying itself as Him.
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The voice promises Elise it can solve all her problems. All she has to do is retrieve three gifts for Him. This effectively starts you on the fetch quests of the game.
The Deep Dark Woods
During the night you’re in a phantasmagorical horror puzzle game. Each evening Elise ventures into the woods in an attempt to retrieve one of these gifts. She steps into nightmarish worlds full of masked spectres, floating candles, killer goat corpses and chatty crows.
These realms are what I came for, I love the creativity that has gone into each one. I’m not big on how the puzzles play out though. A lot of the time I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and would die seemingly out of nowhere.
I found the only way to get through these levels was to save often, grind my way through a level taking small steps forward, hoping I’d get some inkling of how the puzzles work or what the goal of the stage was before being savaged by baddies. Then because health items aren’t that easy to come by, reload the last save and go again – all in the hopes of getting a little further.
I don’t hate this approach with some games, I just feel like a little hint at what’s to come sometimes goes a long way. At least I’d have some idea of how to beat the damn thing.
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I did eventually get my head around the process of things. But would be so frustrated by then, that I didn’t really want to keep playing.
All in a Days Work
Then, during the days there is a lot going on. You’re playing a kind of time management/dating sim.
Elise’s day is broken up into different time slots. Morning, Afternoon, Dusk and Night (where the woods action takes place). You can choose to use one of these time slots do go on a date, or to do some work.
Each time slot you will need to eat food, which is iconised by some bread symbols in your HUD. You gotta’ buy bread to eat it, and to buy it you need money. So, you gotta’ work.
Working is represented by some fun mini games. You can help out around the village by collecting apples or chicken eggs, chopping wood or playing ‘kiss the rat’ with the kids of the town.
At first, I really liked the mini games, they are adorable and are played on an old-school style arcade machine. But considering how much cash you need to earn to keep buying those healing items, the four mini games got old pretty quick. Especially when the story his getting juicy, the mini games just took me out of it.
Medieval Tinder
Elise has a handful of girls in town that she is friends with, and you can go on dates with them throughout the course of the game. Depending on how much time you spend with these women, you’ll earn more hearts that help determine one of 10 endings you can achieve.
I didn’t realise how key these dates were until it was too late. At the start you can go on a few romantic rendezvous here and there, but as things tick along I needed more cash so had to use time slots to work. Then the option to trigger dates never seemed to come up again for me.
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By the time I figured out how important the relationships were, there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. This was particularly frustrating once I completed the game, because it looks like you can’t access the ‘true’ ending without the hearts.
I wasn’t going back and playing it all again, even though that’s clearly what the game wants you to do.
She’s a Witch!
And as if this wasn’t enough to deal with for poor Elise, the villagers suspect she is the witch! You need to keep their suspicions at bay, through bribery and answering accusations correctly.
Makes for a big day before you venture back into the woods at night.
B-E-A-utifal
AstralShift, Little Goody Two Shoes’ developer has to be commended for their attention to detail when it comes to the game’s presentation.
The pixel art format is stunning. Every game screen is a work of art. The colours pop, the foreground layering has you running behind branches and the like, making for a third dimension feel in this charming 2D world.
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The animations are smooth, while keeping that nostalgic feel. Cutscenes are screened in a 90’s style anime, occasionally with a cool VHS filter.
It’s beautiful.
But what I was mostly impressed by was the soundscape of Little Goody Two Shoes. It is top notch.
The soundtrack is just lovely, evoking memories of old Suikoden RPGs on the PS1. The wind whooshes, the birds call, water trickles and your footsteps make a satisfying splash when wading through shallow water. It all sounds so crisp and is absolutely immersive.
It’s these delightful aspects of the game that ultimately win me over. I had a good time exploring Elise’s world in Little Goody Two Shoes, but found I had no intention of replaying the game, due to its often frustrating gameplay and puzzles.
Quest Daily scores Little Goodie Two Shoes:
7/10
Quest Daily was supplied with a copy of Little Goody Two Shoes by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
