I finished Here Comes Niko the other day, and I've written my impressions on it in my blog (instead of a Cohost post because, y'know, :( ). In summary, for a casual "cosy" game it was perhaps a little too casual for me, scratching only the surface in most of its facets in a way that ultimately left me a bit unsatisfied.
I am, in general, in favour of the current trend of ‘cosy games’: (primarily) indie titles which intentionally lower the stakes of the adventures they present, where the primary motivation is for the player to get comfortable and just have a nice ride rather than have challenges or grand dramatics thrown their way. I don’t always want to save the world from an unspeakable terror; sometimes I just want to hang out with friendly faces who shower me with positive affirmation and with who I can have a little feel-good time, like I’m tucking under a cosy throw blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in my hands except in the form of a video game. I think it generally ties into my love for slice-of-life narratives all across different media, which have been rarely represented in video games until the past couple of years, but these proudly less demanding and less intense games are a perfect platform for such micro-scale narratives. All in all, slice-of-life or not, it’s become common for me to delve into these cosy little adventures as palate cleansers between bigger games.
And… I guess ultimately what this “review” will boil down to is that like all genres, cosy games too have their own tropes and characteristics and whether they’re actually pulled off to meet expectations is what determines if they’re actually strong games. The main takeaway I have from Here Comes Niko is how this acts an example of making that matter very clear to me.
(I've also posted this on Backloggd if anyone uses it and wants to follow my occasional long for game thoughts there)