#fromdawn

saw this, action platformer with anime girl, cool. link here

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2286780/Aeruta/

it had a bread theme to it too and in hindsight, the bakery half of the game should've been expected.

overview

so chaya is an adventurer in training who's apparently on probation and taking an exam. on her way to complete the quest she encounters an oven that explodes on her, effie thinks it's chaya's fault (naturally) and hijinks ensue.

by hijinks i mean she hires you to work for her bakery. the place she needs ingredients from is coincidentally where chaya needs to go for her quest, so she goes and does both at the same time yay.

effie is cute and kinda dumb

mechanics

this game has snappy combat, it'd probs be much better on controller (fingers hurt). you have a dodge too. one thing i particularly liked is the "drive" mechanic

proud for this action screenshot

you press x to hook an enemy towards you. the kicker is that you can hold forward + x to move toward the enemy instead. this is the main reason for why i find the combat so snappy. you can either isolate and pick off a mob or close the gap and engage a horde, and it's super intuitive with the way it's implemented (i mean, button press or button plus direction)

eventually you get heals. it's a really quick heal too but you can't restock any (at least as far as i got, a little <1 hr). dodges are important because you don't heal between stages. oh yeah this is a branching dungeon type kinda game (not too sure what the genre is called specifically)

combat gets very repetitive, though it's a demo so i expected that at least. overall, pretty good though i think. chaya feels really good to play.

i'll mention the bakery part in the next section

gameplay loop

the two main parts of the game are the "quest " and the "town" part as i'll be referring to them now.

the quest part is the whole dungeon combat action stuff. you advance chaya's career and farm materials to cook bread and upgrade the bakery. that's pretty much it i think, at least for now.

the town part is where you sell bread. it goes: wait for effie to bake > take bread > place bread on counter (button) > check out customer order (you do this ddr minigame of 2-4 arrow key presses) > clean up litter > repeat. it feels like it's missing something, but i think it's passable if you're not doing it too often (you can't dash indoors sadly)

effie gives you a calendar where on some days some types of bread sell better so you typically aim to open up shop on those days while you farm on every other day, at least that's what it feels like you should be doing because the bread takes a fair amount of mob drops to make

oh yeah you can upgrade your bakery from this architect cutie after you pay your debt to them, that would probs help in making the bakery feel better to play (no i didn't have any more gold to spend)

aesthetics

the sprites feel a bit stiff, but honestly the animations are extremely charming (especially effie's, she's so animated (i have no gif to offer, sorry)). OH also the architect (i already forgot name, bollie or something) was missing a walk cycle animation for one of the cutscenes lol. honestly they're pretty good as stills but definitely feeling lackluster as idle animations (still no gifs). enemies looked a lot better in terms of animation, and combat stuff was passable i think.

anime aesthetic i also like, oh and the enemies are admittedly cute and goofy (hate those crabs, they're annoying to fight (both types))

found a screenshot, i was one letter away

now, the music is pretty good. a few tracks felt reminiscent of touhou, i enjoyed listening to em. the boss had uh, well it's audio felt broken sometimes. feels like its attack sounds just cut out unnaturally. well, it's a demo, so not too big of a deal i think

closing thoughts

this game has a lot of promise i think, i recall recettear when playing this. it's obvs not recettear but i was reminded of it, except aeruta has a lot more action elements. i'm excited to see more of the quest part honestly, weapons, abilities (though not sure what can top drive unless it just straight up has better numbers) and maybe characters too. the town part too to a lesser extent, but it's fun in its own right.

i think their art direction has a solid foundation (it's the standard pixel anime stuff, nothing too groundbreaking) but could use a bit more refinement. more dynamic idles, the sound design on that boss please it bothered me please be broken so the devs can fix it i don't know how i'll fight it knowing that's how it's supposed to sound like orz

i'm looking forward to see where this game leads, i have wishlisted it on steam, and maybe if it sounds nice you can go wishlist it too it helps the devs

BUTTERBLUME! I’M SOOOO HAPPY FOR YOU! SHINEEEEEEEEE CONCERTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH ♥♥♥♥