A short 2D, Point and Click adventure with a Christmassy theme, Seaberry Holiday manages to be a somewhat cute but ultimately quite forgettable festive story. This is one of those games that I wish had a neutral review option, because while I didn’t like it much, I didn’t entirely dislike it either.
[h3]Positives:[/h3]
• Music was quite nice.
• Characters were fairly cute.
• Christmassy theme.
• Achievements.
• Voice acted.
[h3]Negatives:[/h3]
• Short.
• Achievements require replays, but it’s not very repayable.
• Personally, not a fan of the art style.
• Forgettable story.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
Being a Point and Click game, there’s not much to say here. For those who don’t know what to expect, the background images are largely static (there are some falling snowflakes or something occasionally) with areas you can interact with, such as doors which take you to a new scene. It is essentially like an interactive PowerPoint – as such, you don’t need to worry about performance. I don’t think there’s any computer that would struggle to run this.
You can engage in dialogue with a few of the characters and refreshingly, they’re fully voiced! Also surprisingly, Seaberry Holiday features multiple endings. They are not particularly expanded on, but they do offer some small bit of replayability to the game – particularly for achievement hunters, as each ending has an achievement. The game itself is not very repayable, but you can skip most of the story to get to the choices that affect the ending, taking only a few extra minutes to 100%.
[i]Briefly on achievements: they won’t count to your profile completion until the game meets certain interaction metrics, nor will the game show as a ‘perfect game’ even if you 100% it. This limitation is removed once enough people have bought/played the game.[/i]
[h1]Visuals:[/h1]
I know some of you will find it cute, but personally, I am not a fan of the art style here at all. Since this is subjective, you’ll have to make your own mind up, but I found it messy and distracting. Characters all being different shapes and sizes against such a noisy background made them almost invisible too.
Everything is filled in with very solid, block colours that are simplistic but bold and… it just looks like it was drawn in MS Paint. I know the whole thing is a style and some people will like it, but it’s not for me, alas. The only thing I will commend here is the HUD – the chat bubbles and the menus, they were much nicer on the eye. But all in all, the visual presentation was fairly off-putting for me.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
I haven’t played many games like this, but this is the first one I’ve come across that is voiced, and I like it. The acting wasn’t [i]amazingly[/i] strong, but it was cute in a way that I felt worked with the game theme quite well. Each character had a different voice too (although I got the impression it was the same voice actor all-through). It had a very home-made feel about it, but I appreciated this effort. It was one of the more endearing elements of the game for me.
Some of the shops you enter also have different sounds – one has music playing in the background, for example. Sounds aside from one of the characters meowing and this shop are very minimal though, and the game might have benefited from some more to help create a sense of atmosphere – particularly something festive, given the theme of the game.
[h1]Story:[/h1]
It is the run-up to a Christmas festival, but Mother is having doubts about her appearance as something has turned her completely pink. The multiple-choice endings are all tied to what gift you buy her, and the rest of the game is a brief encounter with various members of the community that you help before the festival begins.
It is, despite having three endings, a very linear. One choice locks you out of the others and it’s the only meaningful choice in the game. The festival at the end is fairly flat – you can interact briefly with one or two characters and that’s it, the game ends. While cute to play once, maybe, it is not a very touching, or memorable story. It does capture some of the theme of ‘giving’ associated with Christmas, but that’s all I can think to say for it.
[h1]Conclusion:[/h1]
This is a brief Christmassy game to get you into the festive spirit. It does manage to be cute at times, although unremarkable for most of it. It might be that I wasn’t really the target audience of this game, though.
While Seaberry Holiday does come off feeling a bit like a school project, in part that does give it charm. The story was slightly endearing but not very deep, and neither were the characters. I’d say this was because of how short the game was but my last review was for a shorter game called [url= https://steamcommunity.com/id/Elysian1_/recommended/2017890/]My Dream is a Lost Memory[/url] and that managed to move me much more, so it comes down to something else – perhaps a combination of all I’ve just discussed. I also much preferred the visual style of that game.
Ultimately, I’m giving this game a thumbs up [i]mostly[/i] because it is in indie game. While I don’t think it’s very good, I also don’t think it’s [/i]awful[/i] and unlike with AA or AAA game companies who should know better, I don’t want to shoot an indie developer down so quickly. It’s not like it had no merit at all, it just wasn’t my sort of game. The other game by this developer, Seaberry Keep, seems well-liked, and so if this type of game appeals more to you, there’s every chance you’ll think more highly of it than I did.
[quote]Note: Received for free through my curator, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42611293-Elysian-Reviews/]Elysian Reviews[/url]. This has no effect on anything I say in my review. I also work with a team of writers at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] IndieGems[/url]. Follow us for more detailed game reviews![/quote]
