Melon journey: Bittersweet Memories is a top-down story driven game that graced the Xbox marketplace on April 6th, 2023. The game was developed by two different studios, Froach Club and Poppy Works, and published by XSEED Games and Marvelous Entertainment. This game pays homage to older styled Gameboy games like that of Pokémon in the graphical style. Melon Journey is a monochromatic pixelated text-based adventure where you explore the quaint locale of Hog Town. As you progress, you learn new facts about the adorable animals that reside in Hog Town and their roles in the mystery you must unravel. You play as Honeydew, who has an interchangeable name from the start, and is hunting down their friend (Cantaloupe) and making new ones along the way. It is story driven and does include minor quests apart from the main story that are optional, but the core of the content is the story.
The visuals of Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories are pixelated with a top-down oblique viewpoint. The colors are monochromatic, all being a shade of green. There are many things your character can interact with through their journey, but the key things are the characters you meet and are searching for. All the characters are some form of an animal, and the more you explore, the more you learn the lore of the world Honeydew lives in. As you meet new characters you are tasked with simple things that help the player become more aware of their surroundings. There are also fun useless things to do like shake plants and kick soda machines to break them that help build the world you explore and add to the cute factor.
The plot of Melon Journey is one of finding a friend that works with Honeydew at a melon facility. Honeydew even ventures to a town nearby to meet them and comes across animals who work for the underground crime scene. Melons are illegal in the other nearby town naturally. There is a new mayor being elected in Hog Town and we get to unravel mysteries along the way that count more as side quests involving additional characters. There isn’t a list of quests besides the bar of icons that pop up when you finish one throughout the story, so you’ll have to be alert of what is being said. The gameplay is rather short, but the quality of the content exceeded my expectations for the low price point. Shortly into the title the player does also unlock “skates” to help speed up moving around from cell to cell when helping out other critters.
The best part of this title, other than the art, was the music! The OST offers 90+ original songs and I wrote this while jamming out to some played by a quite literal underground musician in the sewers. Most tracks are short and meant to be looped and are dependent on how long you’re supposed to be in that area. Each area has a different song unless they are loud or peculiar areas; like the factory Honeydew works at, or the underground scenes, or the escalator leading to the train. All these songs are composed by Markeryjane and Mario. They are Jazz and lo-fi cafe sounding songs. This is a great combination to have while reading through the text and delivers the proper mood for each scene. There is no voice narration apart from a few songs and the sound effects to build the environment.
The longevity of this title is only 4-5 hours long if reading just the main story text and exploring little. If a player is very thorough and doesn’t use a guide, the game will take a bit longer than that. I still missed a couple of the achievements while playing due to me solving a quest sooner than needed for one character that apparently auto solves on a later day of the story. I still plan on returning to this title to clean up the couple achievements I missed and to enjoy the music even more.
Conclusion
Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is a brilliant, cute title that was built off their original RPG so many years ago. This feels like a step up for those who played the original story. The main takeaways will be the art and music for most players. You do have the freedom to explore, but the story only moves forward when finishing tasks assigned to you opening new sections. The game was updated back in May which added a quick save feature and fixed minor bugs. This title is very polished unlike many of the games flooding the Xbox marketplace currently. Melon Journey is not a shovel ware title and does have substance for those looking for a more relaxed game to pick up and enjoy. If you’re looking for heavy action, that will not be this title. It is low skill based and requires paying attention to text prompts to know where to go. This is a slower paced game, however, it is incredibly cute from the music production to character designs.
Become a Patron!This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
