Mineko's Night Market Review (MetaKnight19)
I was excited for Mineko's Night Market after seeing the trailers for it, and it mostly delivers with a few caveats.
The overall presentation is really nice, with everything looking like it's been made from collage paper. The soundtrack is nice and chilled, almost lo-fi, however they are on short loops. Game play wise it's very simple; get materials, craft into items, sell at the weekly night market for maximum profit, rinse and repeat. You're able to buy new tools in order to access new areas and get more materials for crafting more complex items. Crafting involves a microgame that requires you to perform an action like snipping a flower stem or tracing a sewing line.
The one major setback is that the pace is very very slow, even by cozy game standards. It's not too much of an issue if you enjoy these kinds of games but it can sometimes feel like the game is dragging it's heels. I have also encountered a couple of technical issues, with slowdown and freezing occurring a few times. During one of the night market events I had to pause the game, then when I came back to it the event had bugged, resulting in a failed event with no way to retry which was annoying.
I've been playing on Steam Deck, and apart from the problems mentioned above it has been running just fine with no need to change any settings.
Overall Mineko's Night Market is a great looking cozy life-sim game with some issues that are hard to look over. But I'd still recommend it to people who enjoy these kinds of games. Also lots of cats everywhere.