Bloomtown: A Different Story review

This year has been full to bursting with big name RPGs, and they’ve been more than happy to steal every hour of our free time. Whether you’ve continued Cloud’s story in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, solved the mystery of the midnight hour in Persona 3 Reload or gone on a Hawaiian adventure in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, you’ve probably spent a good few months of your gaming time this year playing some chunky RPG options. If you’re somehow still craving more of the genre then indie games have got you covered, and there aren’t a whole lot of indie RPGs better than Bloomtown: A Different Story.

Emily and her brother are just a couple of kids staying in a strange new town on their summer vacation. As big city kids this all American small town seems hella boring to them, and they aren’t looking forward to staying with their crotchety grandpa either. It turns out living in the country ain’t so bad when you make a few friends though, especially in a place that holds as many secrets as Bloomtown does.

When a young girl from a few doors down goes missing, Emily decides to take matters into her own hands and try to find her. After following a few leads Emily ends up exploring an old abandoned treehouse, which it turns out contains a whistle that’ll let her teleport to The Other Side. In this world monsters roam free and only with the power of the inner guardians of Emily and company can they be defeated. The story and setting of Bloomtown: A Different Story is essentially a cross between Persona and Stranger Things, and that’s as good as it sounds.

Fighting various ghoulies like sword wielding broccoli and cats in hats is a turn-based affair, with all the usual elemental attacks and status effects you’d expect. Especially when compared to its peers though Bloomtown does some interesting stuff with statuses. Inflicting a status on an enemy will obviously benefit you in a variety of ways (like dealing damage over time or weakening their stats) but they’ll also leave them vulnerable to certain other attacks. Make a foe woozy, for example, and they’ll only have a 50% chance to hit you for a couple of turns, but they’ll also take extra damage from fire and ice in that state. Hitting these clever combos is crucial in tougher fights, and leads to combat that is far more engaging that just mashing the attack option.

As well as being vulnerable to status moves and combos, each enemy also has weaknesses you can exploit. An enemy hit with a move it’s weak to will be knocked down, and if you knock every one of them down you’ll be able to unleash an All Out Attack for massive damage or try to subdue one of them to join you. It’s yet another thing that makes combat a little more interesting, and although similar to systems in other games it’s implemented really well here.

Each party member in Bloomtown has an innate guardian inside them that grants them power in the other world, but alongside that they can also equip a demon you’ve subdued to themselves and use their power. This provides a nice stat boost to the demon’s new master, as well as giving them access to all their spells. You even have the ability to sacrifice leftover demons to power up the ones you want to use with fusion, which is a great way to ensure your favourites stay strong. This all feels a bit inspired by a certain beloved Atlus RPG, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

The Persona influence isn’t just present in the combat of Bloomtown, it’s also present in the everyday life part of the game. Much like in regular life, you only have so many hours in each day to socialise, go to the gym or do some gardening. All of these things will help you grow in power too, be it by raising your max HP after pumping some iron or giving a friend a powerful new buff in battle after a particularly nice hang session. If you waste your free time you’ll struggle more in the other world, and will never save the town from the sinister goings on.

As well as boosting your demon fighting abilities on your down time, you can also take part in activities that will improve Emily as a person. Watching a scary movie will give you more guts, whereas reading a book will improve your smarts. All these stats are used when talking to people to open up new dialogue options, with certain options requiring a dice roll based on your stats to succeed. It’s an interesting extra element to manage, and makes interacting with the quirky folks in town all the more enjoyable.

I couldn’t mention Bloomtown: A Different Story without talking about the sensational music. The battle themes (yes there isn’t just one, far from it) especially are just sensational, with awesome vocals that I just couldn’t wait to hear while I was beating up monsters.

Bloomtown is a wonderful indie JRPG offering, but a couple of things prevent it from reaching from the very top of the turn-based pile. There were multiple times where the game didn’t give me enough information about what I needed to do next, and even though you’re shown the general area of your next task it can be hard to know what you need to interact with there which is frustrating. It’s also hard not to think of some elements of the game as “Persona but worse”, which feels harsh but when the game is so similar those comparisons will be made. Combat is just not as tight, the social elements are just a little less engaging, and although none of these elements are necessarily bad, it’s a noticeable downgrade. At the very least the runtime is much more palatable though.

Bloomtown: A Different Story is a wonderful and charming RPG, with fun combat, an excellent world, and sensational soundtrack. The mix of dungeon exploring, monster fighting, and everyday life is almost as compelling here as it is in the Persona games, but comparing this to the games that inspired it may lead to slight disappointment. Still, if you’re looking for an interesting RPG with an unusual setting and a whole lot of charm you’ll have a blast with this otherworldly adventure.