Mineko's Night Market Review

Running around collecting flowers day after day to craft little knickknacks that I flog to my neighbours quickly becomes the norm in Mineko’s Night Market. I eye up the cat hairballs that litter the place, knowing these will be another resource at some point. For now, I shrug off the idea of crafting cat-smelling goods and continue to hoard as many flowers as possible. It’s repetitive, yet I don’t mind. It’s difficult to begrudge Mineko’s Night Market anything when it’s so utterly charming.

Soft jazz and gentle folksy music are commonplace, and you can’t help but admire the hand-drawn and paper cut-out art style, but it goes beyond the game simply looking and sounding nice. Mineko’s Night Market is bursting with charisma, adorable characters, silly humour, a quaint narrative, and a celebration of Japanese culture. And cats. Lots of cats. It’s captivating enough that I couldn’t stop playing. I kept telling myself, I’ll gather a bit more. I’ll just complete a couple more quests. Just one more Night Market. But it was never just that little bit more.

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Mineko and her dad move to a small island town with the tradition of a weekly Night Market where the locals sell their goods. Unfortunately, the town is a little run down — including the Night Market — so it’s up to Mineko to bring it to life. You’ll be dealing with mysterious agents plaguing the island who are kidnapping cats (catnapping?) and learn more about the mythical Sun Cat Nikko, who the locals worship, as you work to uncover the truth of the strange happenings around town.

Mineko’s Night Market feels slow and straightforward initially. You’re limited to a few flower recipes, and you gather, craft, sleep, and repeat until the weekly Night Market. The minigames feel too easy at first, too, just a matter of pressing a button at the right time, but it’s all deceptively simple.

As you unlock new types of crafts, tools, resources, and areas, everything begins to snowball. Recipes quickly become more complex, requiring a mixture of resources to make them. You have to start juggling what you’re going to gather each day, as you only have a finite amount of stamina, and you need to start paying attention to completing quests for townspeople to unlock even more recipes.

Everything becomes interlinked, and you’ll be spinning multiple plates while trying to progress the story, open new content, and turn a profit. A townsperson will want a specific item, but you need two items you can’t get yet to make it — one from an area you haven’t unlocked and another from a craft type you have yet to obtain. Time to get working, then.

Collecting resources evolves from simply clicking on flowers to timing your rhythm as other minigames evolve in range, too. Each type of crafting has its own minigame, while the weekly Night Market tests your haggling skills. You’ll need to choose the right items, know which to charge more for and maximise your money earned. There’s also a minigame for each market, whether a play where you choose the correct lines or a cat race around the area, with trophies to earn should you succeed.

In each new area, you must outsmart the agents and save the cats, with the mechanics evolving as you progress. At first, you just have to time your liberations well, but later, you’ll have to employ distraction mechanics, subterfuge, and work with a partner to solve puzzles along the way. Then there are the quests to raise friendship levels, the museum collections, and the ever-expanding island and its changing seasons to explore. You won’t be short of things to do, and it’s all too easy to get lost in the relaxing vibes of Mineko’s Night Market’s slice-of-life gameplay.

While the opening is simplistic, you’ll soon find you don’t have enough time to complete everything you want. Those puzzles that felt too simple to begin with suddenly ramp up and fly past so quickly that you don’t have time to react. Before you know it, you’ve failed and are stuck with some garbage of stuck-together paper and wood instead of the beautiful ornament you envisioned. Even then, things don’t get frustrating. You learn from your mistakes and become a button presser with the skills of a quickdraw cowboy.

Mineko’s Night Market is a delightful journey that explores childlike storytelling and themes of tradition and friendship in a way that captivates players. Its beautiful style and emphasis on Japanese culture draw you in, but the compelling and varied gameplay makes you stay. Its slow and simple start may be off-putting for some, but if you’re starting a cute little life sim game like this and expecting fast-paced drama, you’re at the wrong market stall.

Mineko's Night Market

Reviewed on PC.

WHERE TO PLAY

• Charming style and narrative
• Relaxing slice-of-life-gameplay with lots of variety
• So many cats

• Slow start and repetition might be too much of a hurdle for some

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