Bloomtown: A Different Story

Developers: Different Sense Games, Lazy Bear Games
Publisher: Twin Sails Interactive
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $24.99 USD – Available Here

Overview

Taking inspirations from some of the greatest pieces of media have resulted in just as wonderful games as a result, in fact there have even been times that these inspirations have turned into innovations, taking the new piece of media to new heights. Bloomtown: A Different Story from Different Sense Games and Lazy Bear Games is pretty blatant with where their inspirations lie as anyone familiar with the RPG genre or even other types of media will immediately see what the team is going for here. There is a saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and with Bloomtown drawing on numerous sources to try and craft its own story, has this indie game managed to pull itself together into becoming a great experience?

Story

Set during the summer break sometime in the 1960s, a pair of siblings, Emily and Chester, have been whisked away from their home in Chicago to spend time with their grandfather in the far smaller and quiet town of Bloomtown out in the sleepy suburbs. After meeting their crotchety grandfather and getting settled in though, it quickly becomes apparent that Bloomtown is anything but sleepy at night. Strange dreams haunt Emily’s sleep and she soon learns that a local child has gone missing and, while trying to investigate like any bored pre-teen would in the ’60s she manages to find not only a wooden sword but also a strange whistle while helping the local kids search for her. With a light blow on this whistle Emily finds herself drawn into a strange alternate version of Bloomtown, a realm called the Underside, where demons roam freely and the land is twisted and corrupted.

Despite managing to fend off a demon and escape, Emily quickly finds that her nightmares are reality and she soon finds herself signing a pact with a demon to hunt down three other powerful demons using her own guardian deity as well as those of her friends in an effort to save Bloomtown from the dangerous demonic beings that have started taking root in the townsfolk that live there, causing untold levels of harm to the populace over the years. Along the way Emily is joined by her younger brother, a hinted romance with the daughter of the local police chief Ramona, and even a talking corgi that morphs into a muscle-bound beast with a rocket launcher in a fight. Together these four, and eventually sort of a fifth, must try to clear the Undersides that have sprung up around Bloomtown to try and save their quiet little town from turning into a nest of demons.

Banding together a group of pre-teens to venture into an alternate reality from their own isn’t the most original, nor is pairing them with a talking animal that knows far more about the situation than anyone would expect, but despite the writing taking many hints from other pieces of media, Bloomtown: A Different Story actually manages to handle itself quite well and this is thanks to how down to earth and also how impactful the game’s writing is and a lot of it has to do with how well it handles its characters. It is worth noting that Bloomtown isn’t afraid to have a far darker storyline than its colorful pixelated world may showcase and not only are there a number of side-quests featuring solid writing but core story points as well have some very intense themes. It also helps that, similar to other games with party members such as this, players can bond with their party members and learn more about their backstories which, just like before, broach themes and topics that players wouldn’t expect and that is something that Bloomtown does excellently more often than not.

Gameplay

Bloomtown: A Different Story is almost a tale of two games as players will spend their day and even most nights simply living life as Emily and exploring the quaint rural town, solving people’s problems, taking part in various activities, and even working or reading books only to delve into the Underside and face off against the monsters that reside within in an effort to solve the mysteries that are currently abounding and put a stop to whatever demonic influence has currently started rearing its head. Interestingly enough, everything in the game runs on a day and night cycle with stores opening and closing, specific activities only being available at certain times, reading or cooking or even crafting requiring in-game time commitments, and more. In fact, there is even a weather cycle of sorts with some days being normal, rainy, misty, or downright scorchers and all of these elements come into play in minor ways. Such as having certain rare fish spawn in fishing locations, having to either not water crops or water crops twice to keep them alive. Oh, and there are crops players can plant as well.

This is a game with an absolute abundance of things to find and do as players explore the city to the point that it can feel a bit overwhelming at first, especially since the game is incredibly thin on tutorials. First of all, while time passes and Emily must sleep at curfew, there is no actual time limit on how long players have to advance the plot despite the game seemingly saying otherwise. Similarly, the title also features a very handy quick travel system that allows players to jump to or nearby locations that they have previously discovered. This means that tracking down a quest objective in a previously found location can be incredibly easy and simplistic, especially since the diary does a solid job keeping track of what objectives players need to complete and where to do them. That being said, there were two occasions that a quest was suddenly able to be completed instantly despite not apparently accomplishing the steps to the task and while they were marked successful it does beg the question as to how buggy some quests can be.

Now, as mentioned before Emily has plenty of things she can do in Bloomtown and nearly every activity she takes part in can help her raise a personality stat as well. This includes her Smarts, Proficiency, Guts, and Charms and all of these stats come into play on both sides of the game. During dialogue or interacting with objects Emily will occasionally be given a choice that utilizes one of these stats and the higher the stat, the better percentage she has at a successful dice roll. On the Underside, these stats can also increase status element affliction rate as well as the roles required to “subdue” a demon. Either way, it is unfortunate to note that while players can make use of these roles, they are one and done affairs and while this may not seem like much of an issue for some choices, sometimes very noteworthy items or pieces of lore are hidden behind a successful dice roll. 

This also brings up an issue that plagues every aspect of Bloomtown: A Different Story and that is the save system. Rather than allowing players to save anytime or even create a manual save the night before going to sleep, the title relies solely on autosaves. While this works well for the most part as the title autosaves whenever fast traveling or even moving between rooms on the Underside, it can lead to significant issues such as failing an aforementioned dice role, overwriting a save file that coil have given players a chance to make a different choice instead, or in my case, completely hard lock the game to the point it is unplayable. This resulted in a bug that created a permanent loading state on all recent autosaves with no proper way to actually continue the game creating a hard progress lock. Currently the only way around this bug is loading from a far earlier save file as the title does make an autosave upon chapter completion though, depending on playstyle and how many side-activities players have done, could be hours of progress lost.

Anyways, once players travel to the Underside they will bring their entire party with them and will find a variety of simple puzzles to solve, treasures to obtain as well as doors and chests to unlock with crafted lockpicks and of course plenty of demons to fight. Demons are encountered in the field via black silhouettes and will either attack Emily or be attacked, there appears no difference who hits who in combat, and the combat itself then takes place in a turn based format with all members of the player’s party attacking and then the demons attacking in-turn. Players can use melee weapons to attack any enemies they wish in the front rows but any foes further back that are protected by a demon in the front will need to be targeted either by a firearm, which have limited ammo for each fight, or with a spell. In some interesting but also annoying fashion, many spells in the game have two variations, ones that directly attack an enemy with an element with a small chance of inflicting a status ailment and one that focuses solely on inflicting an ailment. While this may work well to chain together combos using elemental chains, it doesn’t help with the actual “downing” and subduing of demons.

You see, another aspect of the game that lacks a proper tutorial, is how to subdue a demon. All demons on the field must be downed by being struck by their weakness or incapacitated in some way and then players must succeed a roll to actually subdue the demon. This demon can then be equipped to any party member to help augment their spiritual guardian by providing that demon’s useful abilities to help expand the player’s offensive line-up. In similar fashion, captured demons can be “fused” sort of, using a special device but rather than actually fusion it’s more like simply sacrificing them to boost a favorite demon’s stats. There are no fusions to create new demons and even unlocking new abilities is rare and unreliable. 

This makes capturing demons something of an annoyance more often than not as players will simply want to cover their bases with elements and that’s all, relying on their old favorites rather than the minimal stat boosts that acquiring a new demon may provide compared to simply equipping stronger armor or weapons, albeit ones that appear to have random numbers likely indicating extra effects that aren’t properly labeled. It is also worth noting that should players not want to bother subduing a demon they can perform an “All Together” attack to deal massive damage to any demons on the field. It also must be said that, while combat is far from a simple affair, eventually players can easily outclass standard demon encounters and the ability to just “auto battle” would be a great addition to help zip through fights. In fact, Chester even gains the ability to randomly one-shot enemies he is stronger than though this happens far too rarely and feels like something that should be expanded on to help speed up easier battles.

Audio & Visuals

Bloomtown: A Different Story has some truly gorgeous looking sprite work at times, especially in the Underside. While the general world of exploring Bloomtown is fairly straightforward with a number of great looking structures and solid enough character designs, including some rather expressive ones given the limitations of the pixelated designs, the game shines its best when in the Underside. Not only are the twisted versions of some locations far creepier than they have any right to be but many of the demon designs are rather outstanding looking and put some fun twists on predictable tropes when it comes to facing off against specific demons. The spells aren’t the most impressive looking, even the grand spells players can eventually gain access to but the aforementioned All Together attacks are decent looking though it would have been nice if there were some variations depending on which character initiated the attack.

While there are only minimal sound effects to go along with the gameplay and no actual dialogue being spoken it must be said that Bloomtown: A Different Story features some incredible background music. The game features a number of different battle themes that all have accompanying vocals to them that just sound outstanding in combat with even “elite” demons having special tracks of their own. Players can even obtain vinyls while playing the game to listen to the background music back in Emily’s room.

Overall

Bloomtown: A Different Story manages to wear countless references and inspirations on its sleeves but it still manages to pull itself together to put out an impressive, albeit flawed and buggy indie RPG. With turn-based combat that feel satisfying but tend to drag on and so many side-activities to take advantage of and explore in the grander world Bloomtown offers a solid, albeit somewhat unoriginal storyline that is tied together by some impressive character writing and themes that fans of RPGs, especially indie ones such as this, will delight in.

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