Destiny Connect Review
Release Date: October 22nd, 2019 (NA) / October 25th, 2019 (EU)
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.
Platform: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, PC
Price: $49.99
Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers has such an interesting way of delivering its story and gameplay that despite any issues I had with the overall package, it's something that I've wanted in an RPG for quite some time. Finally I was free of cliché settings filled with warriors, dragons, magic, and the like and could experience something that was one-of-a-kind, thoughtful, and innocent while still being appealing to an RPG fanatic such as myself. It reminded me of other indie games that took the typical RPG formula but with a new setting that was seldom, if ever, used - titles like Saturday Morning RPG, YIIK, and Cosmic Star Heroine come to mind alongside the multitude of RPG Maker titles that actually go out of their way to not attempt yet another Final Fantasy clone. Destiny Connect has this wonderful, almost steampunk inspired aesthetic hidden inside its 90's setting to it that marries nicely with a Pixar art direction of its character designs and Disney World feel in the town of Clocknee and beyond.
Destiny Connect sees you mainly play as the little girl, Sherry, on New Year's Eve. You're a happy, good-mannered girl that seems inexorably jovial and excited for the new year to come, filled with tons of great food, fireworks, and a festival the town of Clocknee is holding called the Soulman Fest – It’s a joyous time of the year where people celebrate each other, the history, and what the future holds. You're patiently waiting for your father to come home as he's been out for work for quite some time, leaving weeks to months at a time thanks to his job, and in the interim decide to go out, delivering a package to your grandmother from your mother as a favor. On the way out, passing by, you notice a movie on TV that seems to always be on about a boy who goes back in time to save his town. He's facing weird mechanical monsters, and in a clevery way, the game shows a cutscene from this film that introduces you to the battle mechanics of how the game works. It's standard turn-based combat, but with a wonderful UI that's inviting and easy to grasp, especially for those new to the genre and looking for a good place to start. After those introductions are finished, you walk out and begin to explore the town, primarily headed to your grandmother's café. Once out here you'll get a grasp of the menu system, how navigation works, and more; but one thing I couldn't help notice right away was the camera system that, no matter what amount of tweaking I did in the settings, seemed to have a grudge against me and felt like it was fighting me every step of the way. It's unfortunate that such a beautiful game has a camera that wants to go against you and make viewing anything inconvenient, and it makes your 30+ hour trip through Destiny Connect one that you simply have to tolerate outside of its story because of a camera that refuses to work correctly. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but at least a few times an hour I would find myself huffing and puffing at what would essentially become a fishing contest with the camera, reeling the thing in until you can grab it right where you want it.
After some brief exploration, you meet up with your friend Pegreo and go to a place you were told not to go - because sometimes being a rebel is fun and curiosity can get the best of you as a kid - and you see a familiar face as you enter this forest and find yourself ambushed by odd TV-shaped creatures. Once saved, you meet the kid that looks eerily similar to the one from the movie earlier on TV. After he tells you to go home and stay there "at least for tonight", you become fed up and annoyed since he's a kid much like you are and don't like bossy kids, but it's getting late anyway and you don't want to keep your mom worrying, so you walk home with Pegreo. Still wondering where your father is, Sherry begins to get sad as she was looking forward to seeing him and enjoying dinner as a family, but to cheer Sherry up, her mother invites her out to see the fireworks just as it's about to hit midnight. Every cutscene that takes place from the opening up until this moment and throughout the game is such a beautifully crafted scenario with an innocent direction that exudes charm from top to bottom. As the countdown begins, the city of Clocknee becomes even more alive than it already was, filled with cheers and a color palette that goes across the spectrum, adding vibrancy to its semi-dieselpunk and 90s influence. The final ten seconds begin to drop and when the clock strikes midnight, fireworks go up and at the first explosion… silence. Time sits still, streets are quiet, and everyone is frozen in place, anything mechanical, however, has pretty much come to life.
It's a very story-oriented playthrough that the gameplay itself kind of takes a backseat and doesn't really contribute anything new to the RPG formula, but truthfully, for a game like this, I'm OK with it. I love a good, complex RPG when it's intuitive and introducing fresh ideas setting new standards, but Destiny Connect doesn't need any of that. It's content with being this feel-good RPG that tells a story from a perspective of a child, and I can't commend enough how serene I was playing through it, taking things at my leisure and not being penalized for it because I wasn't grinding enough or upgrading anything. Destiny Connect forgoes all of that and gives something akin to the Atelier games or Dragon Quest Builders where it's more concerned at making sure you have fun on top of anything else. You'll still have plenty of outfits, a skill tree and equipment to play around with - including your trusty robot friend, Isaac, that you can modify and enhance to your liking - but nothing is overly done and tries to make things any more convoluted than they need to be. There's this sense of friendship and being proud of the things you have as you go through this wonderful world in Destiny Connect, and as someone who has played a wide array of NISA's catalogue, I can easily put this as one of my favorites in a long time due in part to the fact that there is simply nothing like it, and the package as a whole wraps itself nicely. I haven't felt or seen this kind of charming and caring adventure since World of Final Fantasy - there's just something about that kind of approach to gameplay, music, story, and art that doesn't demand much from the player other than to love the game in return. It's odd, really, to talk about a game like that, but it doesn't hold your hand in a way that makes it easy or forgiving, but one that's simply there for you when the real world is too much.
Destiny Connect unfortunately is not without its faults, however, giving the Nintendo Switch what may very well be one of the lowest resolutions I have seen on the platform. The graphics are amazing, but the low resolution - which is really all it suffers from outside of a camera with insecurity issues - really makes the game borderline horrendous at times. Indoors, it manages to hold its own, though there's a softness and fuzziness that's still there, but character models look great and the environment pops out rather nicely. Outdoors, however, things take a turn for the worse. It's a thankfully stable experience, but in larger environments with a plethora of detail, I could literally - and I mean literally - count every single pixel on screen if I wanted to. A lot of the time I would feel conflicted because despite my eyes trying to make sense of what it's looking at like a Rorschach test, my ears were blessed by soothing tunes outside of battle that had this odd somber tone in addition to its playfulness, a sense of a theme of being unsure of your own abilities but believing anything is possible with your friends by your side supporting you the whole way.
Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers is far from perfect, and it's clear that limitations were met and sacrifices to visual fidelity had to be made to Switch, but it's one of the many tradeoffs for the ability to go portable. If you see yourself primarily playing on the TV, just go ahead and get the PC or PS4 version instead so you can see how truly stunning this game really is, but if you were an avid 3DS user then pixel counts shouldn't be too much of an issue for you and the Switch version should suffice. At the end of the day, though, regardless of your platform of choice, Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers is refreshing and I can't recommend it enough. A lot of NISA published titles tend to have a signature look, with a lot of anime influence being the driving force of their titles, and while Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers still carries much of that, it stands out from the rest of the publisher's vast and illustrious catalogue and is immensely exciting to see where this game could possibly go in the future with succeeding entries, or simply seeing other games developed inside this wonderful engine. Usually when the theme of going back in the past or future is brought up, there's this dystopian nature behind it, but Destiny Connect makes it clear that while things can get melancholic and machines stand in your way, it's a way to, well, connect with the things you have and not take anything for granted. It's a wonderful RPG that's simple yet effective, with a solid score filled with melodies and sounds that take you on your way through past, present, and future, and a story that's wholesome and heartwarming. If you ever found yourself looking at games like Kingdom Hearts or know someone who's found them appealing but daunting because of a lack of history, take them to Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers as a perfect substitute, but even for those that are veterans of the genre have plenty to love here as outside of its 90’s setting (which inevitably turns older than that as Sherry and friends go back in time), it’s a nostalgic trip as the game can sometimes feel like a time that once was in an almost bittersweet way.
PROS:
A wonderful art style that's refreshing, innocent, and charming.
Simple battle mechanics make it an RPG worth picking up for anyone
The music is soft, fitting, and welcoming, much like the theme of the rest of the game.
Feel good story with likable characters and world
CONS:
Camera has it out for you
The resolution can be abysmal a lot of the time, especially in the open environments.
Thank you to Nippon Ichi Software for providing us a copy of Destiny Connect: Tick Tock Travelers for the purposes of this review.