Screenshot: Tasomachi
When looking at the promotional marterial for
Tasomachi, it looks like a magical experience. And indeed, its first few moments are magical.
Tasomachi has a great art style, and a world that looks so magical it begs to be explored. Explore you must, as you soon find yourself with a broken airship that requires repair. Beyond making a good first impression, and some pretty screenshots,
Tasomachi feels mostly unfinished, or just bizarrely barren.
Tasomachi is a platforming game with emphasis on collection and exploration. You play as a little girl with a magical airship. Her airship breaks down as she’s travelling the world. She stops at a town for repairs, but finds it empty, and darkened. So does that mean a mystery to solve and imminent adventure? Sort of, but not in the way I expected. The main gameplay in
Tasomachi is platforming and collecting with progress locked behind your ability to find a required amount of collectibles to progress. Most of these collectibles are hidden or accessible by completing short platforming sections.
Screenshot: Tasomachi
Mechanically,
Tasomachi leaves much to be desired. As a platformer, it’s just not very exciting and jumping feels floaty. In fact, movement in
Tasomachi hits a sort of uncanny valley between feeling like a good platformer, and like a terrible one. It’s not the worst, but it’s so close to being actually good, it hurts a little more than if it were just terrible.
On the face of it, exploration through beautiful urban landscapes isn’t horrible, even if they are empty. But it’s almost haunting how empty
Tasomachi feels. It’s almost cursed, like you stepped into a game you weren't supposed to play. Mostly, it feels unfinished. As an early access game I could say it had potential—but as a fully released product is leaves much to be desired. There are extras to collect—a house to collect items, different outfits to swap out—but it doesn’t equate to more than an unsatisfying search for a few types of collectibles.
Screenshot: Tasomachi
While
Tasomachi boasts a visually pleasing art style, there really isn’t much to do beyond what you’re introduced to in the first few minutes. There are a few good elements that feel like the start of a great game, but the concept does not go very far. There’s an argument to be made that
Tasomachi is just a relaxing experience, but relaxing does not equate to boring. Tighter platforming controls would have gone a long way to make the experience more compelling, but even then, there’s just so little to do and so few reasons to do it.
Tasomachi is
available now on Steam.
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