Giraffe and Annika | Review – The Studio Ghibli style

Giraffe and Annika

Platform:

PC, PS4, SWITCH

Kind:

action-adventure

Exit date:

28 August 2020

Developer:

Atelier Mimina, NIS America

Distributor:

Atelier Mimina

–
–
–
–

Let’s start with the story and, specifically, how it is told. The classic films are replaced by cartoons that tell us about the game events. In these moments, the impression is that of reading the tables of a manga. It is a choice that has now lost its originality (it is not the first title to use this expedient and it certainly will not be the last), but thanks to a good quality of the drawings we were still able to appreciate this form of narration.

As for the story itself, we know very little at first. We see some fragments of Annika’s memories, the girl protagonist of the title, after which we find her on a mysterious island, with the girl who has no idea how she got there. From here the mystery deepens: Moving on the island, Annika finds other characters, and everyone already seems to know her, despite the fact that she has no idea who they are. Among them, we also find a boy named Giraffe. He tells Annika about three stellar fragments scattered around the island, which need to be recovered.

After an initial hesitation, Annika decides to help the boy, knowing that to find the fragments she will have to venture into dangerous dungeons inhabited by ghosts. This is the story in a nutshell; as you may have understood, it is a rather simple and unpretentious narrative plot. Again, it seemed to us that a source of inspiration were Japanese animated films, particularly some films produced by the Ghibli studio.

Even without reaching the qualitative heights reached by these masterpieces, history of Giraffe and Annika it is still pleasant, as long as you are willing to get involved in a fairy tale that wants to touch emotional chords without providing too many explanations or insights into the world we are going to explore.

Technically, Giraffe and Annika it’s a decent title; the models of the characters are well made, as well as the settings, which however suffer from an excessive genericity: unfortunately, despite having appreciated the artistic direction of the title, we must admit that it has not always proved satisfactory. It’s clear that it is a low budget title, so don’t expect to see the power of PlayStation 4 (but not even Nintendo Switch) fully exploited. On the other hand, the game seemed fairly fluid, without slowdowns or other hitches. As for the soundtrack, focuses a lot on quiet and relaxing melodies, which fully reflect the fairytale atmosphere of the story. We liked the choice a lot, to the point of making us consider the OST one of the strengths.

Let’s explore the island

Giraffe and Annika is basically divided into two sections: fasi action-adventure and fasi rhythm game. Most of the time, we will be playing an action-adventure. As Annika we find ourselves exploring the mysterious island on which the girl woke up. Initially we will not have many commands available, but continuing in the game we will be able to unlock new skills (such as jumping), which will allow us to reach areas of the island that were previously inaccessible. The island functions as a sort of large hub, from which you can then access the different dungeons of the game.

However, it is a hub full of activities: we will find characters ready to entrust us with tasks, secrets to discover, puzzles to complete. Mostly these are simple missions, which always follow the pattern of “find item A and get B to give you item C”. Almost all missions are required to complete the game, and it is not possible to continue in the story without completing them. Thanks also to their structure, the latter are rather simple, but in the long run they become easily boring, given the little variety.

An element to be taken into consideration at this stage is the day-night cycle: certain NPCs and certain events will only be available at a certain time of day. Fortunately, you can speed up the hours by going to sleep in one of the different beds available on the island. This however brings us to another problem of Giraffe and Annika: the absence of a map.

Not being able to see where the beds are, or even just not being able to see where we have already been can lead to an annoying spin, thanks to the generality of the settings that are too similar. Fortunately, the game map is not so large as to make this defect a real problem, but a simple trick (a mini-map, a compass …) would have been enough to facilitate the player’s life.

Another flaw we found concerns the controls. They are not difficult or imprecise, but we had the weird feeling of not being in total control of Annika. We would certainly have appreciated more refinement on this front, especially with regards to commands such as jumping.

Dungeons, ghosts and… music?

As we said, the island leads to the different game dungeons, where we will have to venture in search of the fragments that Giraffe told us about. Entering the dungeons, we immediately notice a peculiarity: in the game it is not possible to attack. We can only defend ourselves from the blows of the enemies, rather anonymous ghosts in design, hiding behind objects or, more simply, running away. This is an interesting choice, which somehow brings the gameplay to mirror the fairytale and peaceful atmosphere of the story.

The exploration of the dungeons does not differ from that of the island, with the difference that there are not many NPCs or secrets to watch out for here. The only optional elements of the dungeons are collectibles, the meowsterpieces, of feline works of art that we can collect and exchange for items later in the game. All in all, these sections are well crafted and fun, with little environmental puzzles to solve that help set the pace for the adventure.

Unfortunately, even here there is a lack of a map of any kind: the generic design of the dungeons leads to retracing the same areas several times if you are not careful. In any case, thanks to the reduced extension of the levels, it does not take long to reach the goal, jealously guarded by a boss. And here we enter another phase of the game.

During the boss fights, Giraffe and Annika becomes a rhythm game. Basically, we will have to repel the boss’s shots by pressing the X button in time (on PlayStation 4), moving on a grid of three boxes. It is really a very basic rhythm game, which manages to entertain but which does not present great ideas of originality; indeed, to tell the truth we have felt the lack of a deepening of these mechanics, which are all too superficial.

This superficiality is perhaps an indication of another problem, which runs through the entire title and is the biggest flaw of Giraffe and Annika: the lack of focus. In trying to practically cover three game genres, Giraffe and Annika it turns out to be sufficient in all three but without ever being able to go beyond the simple homework – and it is a real shame, because behind these shortcomings we see the talent of the developers, who would surely have been able to package a more complete product if they had decided to focus on one style only. By doing so, instead, Giraffe and Annika remains a product that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, because it could have given much more.

Ultimately, however, we would like to recommend the game to fans of Japanese animation, especially of that fairy tale produced by Studio Ghibli; thanks to the short duration (which it stands at around five hours), you will not be bored and you will find yourself with a story that will remain in your heart anyway. For all the others, however, it is advisable to move on.

Giraffe and Annika, in PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions, is available in an unmissable limited edition to this address.

–