Maybe it's coincidence, but every time I write a review for this site, it always ends up positive. In reality, it's probably just because I only write about things that left a big enough impression for me, and usually that only happens with games that I like. Sometimes, however, there comes a game that leaves a big impression for the opposite reasons. The victim of such impressions today is Sushi Ben, a game I'm pretty sure not many know about.
WELCOME TO THE TOWN OF KOTOBUKI!
I don't know what this is.
Sushi Ben was initially released in 2023 exclusively for VR (I believe PlayStation), but a few weeks ago it was released for Steam with the ability to not play with VR (you can still play with VR if you wish it, though). Although I didn't know this, I still followed its release because I found it very appealing. And, to my surprise, it was launched for very cheap (around 12 € full price, with a small launch discount), so I bought it right away.
Sushi Ben has you play as an unnamed character in first person view (it might as well you, the person behind the screen, the protagonist). After a small tutorial on a train, which teaches you the admittedly basic controls, you arrive in Kotobuki, a small coast town somewhere in Japan. Through the recommendation of the old man who accompanied you on your journey, you visit the only sushi restaurant in Kotobuki, but to your dismay, it's closed. Things ensue and you become the SUSHI-NO-KAMI-SUSHI-NO-TAISHI or whatever it's called. It's now your duty, as the guardian of the sushi to help the eponymous Ben rebuild his career as the greatest sushi chef in Japan.
A FEAST FOR YOUR SENSES
Each character is distinct and unique.
Let's get the good out of the way first: Sushi Ben is absolutely gorgeous. The guys at Big Brane knew this, and it's what they capitalised their marketing on it (most of the advertisement followed exclusively on how the game looked). The game features an art style that's based on anime, which translates surprisingly well to the cell shaded graphics of the game.
To complement it, it also has another key feature: the use of manga panels to convey the emotions of the characters. It's a really great idea that adds a lot of personality to the game. The town of Kotobuki is beautiful as well, and although it's not particularly detailed, especially in the backgrounds, it's pleasant to the eye. The characters also look great, with some excellent designs (although Ben, for example, it's a simple sushi chef). At worst, they are cute, and at best, very handsome. On the other hand, the animations are very basic, and some are outright bad. For example, towards the end of the game, two characters fight between themselves, and the fight looks very stiff and lacks a lot of impact. Quite frankly, there's not a single animation that's remarkable or... good, which is a shame because hte rest of the game is fantastic form a visual standpoint.
Fortunately, it's not just your that can eat, but your ears as well, because the soundtrack is also excellent. It's very fun and memorable, and I found myself humming them some times. In fact, the whole sound design in general is magnificent, because of the sound effects. All of them were designed in a factory to be perfect as possible: cycling through the menus, picking an item, speaking to someone, the "item get!" jingle... it's wonderful. There's also voice acting which, although not bad, it's unnecessary. There's Japanese and English dub. The Japanese one is fine, and there's some good names in there (I'm pretty sure Gen has Rikiya Koyama's voice, so I was imagining Saejima the whole time). The English dub, on the other hand... I don't like how they pronounce clearly Japanese names.
NICHIJOU, BUT WORSE
Sushi Ben has a straightforward story that doesn't try to surpise you in any way, much to its detriment.
Whenever you draw inspiration from an anime, you have millions of options to design your story. Sushi Ben decided to focus on a slice-of-life structure, which is fine, there are good slice-of-life animes and mangas. Two of my favorites (Nichijou and Yotsuba!) happen to be of that genre, so I didn't mind that approach. And, in that sense, Sushi Ben didn't disappoint, because it's exactly what they advertised. As a result, each chapter simply consists on you going up to a character and solving whatever problem that they have.
Now, here's the issue: the events that unfold aren't interesting at all. They are basic as hell and, quite frankly, not that funny. This, in turn, makes the game feel repetitive (which gets accentuated by the gameplay, which I'll rant about later). The worst part is that there are some parts that have some promise, such as Ben's master having gone off somewhere to do something or... actually, that's the only thing that's remotely interesting, and it doesn't even get resolved. In fact, the game ends abruptly and very unsatisfyingly. It does establish some connection with Hatoful Boyfriend, if you care about that, at least.
As for the characters, they are on that weird limbo where they are not that memorable because their arcs aren't meaningful enough but not that boring that you hate them. I'd say that, for the most part, every single character is, at least, nice enough that you don't feel tedium having to meed them. And, considering that part of the gameplay is doing requests for them, it's appreciated. At least they have some semblant of a personality, even if that personality ends up being tropey and cliched. Not a single one of the is originaly, unfortunately.
There's, unsurprisingly, one big criticism regarding the characters: when they're not relevant to the narrative or to a quest, they're suspiciously absent a lot of times, which makes the town feel very empty too often.
NOT ENOUGH GAME IN THIS GAME
She says it as if there was something to do in this game.
The biggest issue with Sushi Ben is its gameplay. Remember how before I said that this game was originally for VR? And it shows. You see, VR games usually have two big issues:
- They rely on very expensive, very inconvenient equipment.
- Technology is priority over the gameplay.
As for the rest of the mini games, they don't even require you to use your brain to complete them. In fact, calling them mini games is being generous, because these might be the most useless gameplay features I have ever seen. Remember the aforementioned fishing? It's completely worthless, because you can't do anything with the fish! You can't store any of them, you can't place them anywhere (in fact, if you leave them on the ground, they disappear after a while) and they don't get registered somewhere. And that's the supposed best mini game! Bug catching is even more worthless because there's like three types of bugs and they don't get registered either, ghost catching is done in very concrete and specific places, archery is ONLY usable for a quest and chiseling can't even be done outside of the first time you're given the tool. I don't really get the purpose of the mini games. You could remove them and NOTHING would change. That's how useless they are. Well, to be fair you do use them: for fetch quests! Talk to a guy and they'll tell you to get X or Y. And that's it! THAT'S. IT. I hate it.
HOW DID THIS GET RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC?
Ben is supposed to be looking to the other side and give sushi to a guy. Where's the guy? Nobody knows.
I lied before. The gameplay is not the worst part of the game, but rather how buggy it is. Usually, I don't take bugs into consideration, because they can be patched, and sometimes they can be funny. The former remains true for Sushi Ben, but not the latter. At least for the VR release, the game is ten times more frustrating than it is because of bugs and glitches. Sometimes it's because you teleport to a wrong place (you could say that it's your fault, but I don't think it should happen either way), and sometimes it's because the game felt like it. You can get softlocked easily for simply playing the game. There's a million ways this can happen, and when it'll happen it's completely unpredictable. When this happens, you just have to reload the latest checkpoint (yeah, this game doesn't have manual safe). And, sometimes, those checkpoints can take you a bit far away, which gets very annoying when it happens every single time. In the way the game is currently, it's almost unplayable. Fortunately, this should get fixed in the future. If only they could fix the gameplay as well...
FINAL THOUGHTS
Ok, this one was pretty funny.
Sushi Ben is proof that VR games should remain VR. Beautiful graphics and fun music don't compensate for worthless gameplay, boring storyline and one-dimensional characters. You can easily skip this one, it's not worth it, with or without bugs.
Pros
- + Beautiful art style
- + Gorgeous graphics
- + Fun, albeit one-dimensional, characters
- + Good soundtrack
Cons
- - Boring, unremarkable story
- - Unnecessary gameplay
- - Useless minigames
- - Extremely bugged
1
Gameplay
There's just not enough game to this game.
10
Graphics
The zenith of Sushi Ben, for what it's worth.
4
Story
The problem is not that it has a slice-of-life structure. The problem is that the events that happen aren't fun.
8
Sound
Good soundtrack that complements its art style.
1
Replayability
If the story is not fun and the gameplay is worse, what's the point?
4.8
out of 10
Overall
Sushi Ben needs more than taking inspiration from better products to stand out, with or without VR.
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