Let’s Journey Nintendo Switch 2 Review 5/10 "Not as idle as you’d think" 🎒 @PotionPlayer #IndieGame #GameDev

A couple of weeks ago I fancied something a little straightforward and was offered the opportunity to cover Let’s Journey. Originally released on PC in 2020, it has now found its way to the console market. 

Whilst it has its moments, due to it not being a true idle experience – requiring player interaction to proceed – it ties you to the game, and unfortunately, whilst there is a lot of content here, the lack of variety creeps in pretty quickly, and it starts to feel more of a time sink than a fun time to be had.

A 2D game with cartoonish visuals, Let’s Journey makes a decent first impression with typical soaring, jaunty orchestral music and menu screens that hint at the depth and breadth of options available to you. Selecting the first unlocked character, you make your way across fields and through dungeons and castles on the way to the ultimate goal of your quest. Each ‘turn’ is selected by a random roll of the dice, after which you’ll either come across a random encounter that could be an opportunity, or befall your character, an enemy attack, a chest to open, or – occasionally – a boss fight. 

Whilst the random factor and number of items here that allow you to upgrade your arsenal, armour and pets (animals and creatures that fight for you) means that the early game is fun as you build your character, it’s not too long before the chest unlocking mini-game, enemies, and random encounters began looping to quite an insane degree. You also pick up on just how few weapon types there are, as most of what you end up coming across is effectively looped junk. 

This sense of repetition isn’t helped by the endlessly cyclical music, and as you finish each playthrough, the incremental unlocks and permanent upgrades lose their lustre, as it dawns on you just how empty your time will feel.

Games that are idle time sinks as Lets Journey claims itself to be need depth and variety in order to remain engaging and stand out from the crowd. The fundamentals of a decent game are here, but there needed to be either a complete removal of player agency to make this a truly idle clicker that you could check in on every now and again to see how your hero is doing, or there needed to be a far greater number of encounters, enemies and items / equipment to warrant long-term play. 

SUMMARY

As it is, Lets Journey is a basic title that’s fun for up to an hour, but anything beyond that feels almost like grinding work, sadly.

5/10

MELTING💧

(also available on PS5, Windows)

Developer – PotionPlayer

Publisher – Upscale Studio