Tsuki's Odyssey Review

I believe we’ve all been there. We’ve forgotten the toxic relationship we have with mobile games where we trust them and then find disappointment deep within our souls by the several forms of limitations mobile games have. Be it monetisation, energy systems, or just flat out unplayable P2W mechanics, but we still try to find games to play.

I was in such a situation when I stumbled upon Tsuki’s Odyssey; A charming little game that had its early access release on the 30th of April. I was there for that momentous event, unfortunately I had sworn off early access games because of the terrible experience I had with them on Steam. So I decided to wait and kinda forgot about it until I stumbled upon it once more when it was released, only a couple of days after it.

I think it’s worthy to mention that Tsuki’s Odyssey is sort of a re-release of the original game, Tsuki Adventure, with rehauled graphics. The game came out in 2018 and earned itself an Editor’s Choice Award on the Google Play Store.

I’ll bet you anything there’s a Piece of Heart in that chest.

Tsuki’s Odyssey follows Tsuki, a bunny that decides to leave life in the city for something more peaceful once he receives a letter from his grandfather. Although Tsuki won’t be getting any awards for originality in story, its gameplay is simplistic and charming. Something you can pick up at any moment of the day and just do for a little bit.

That’s what Tsuki’s Odyssey excels so much at. In contrast to Animal Crossing: New Horizons that time gates content, but it doesn’t do so in a punishing manner. Everytime you log in, you can find your furry companion doing any number of things, interacting with the environment of furniture you have been setting up.

It’s important to note that in Tsuki’s Odyssey you aren’t really playing as yourself. Tsuki has his own personality, although sometimes you do get to choose from different dialogue choices, he is predominantly his own person. That being said, you do get to decorate according to your liking.

And that’s one of the things I found charming in Tsuki’s Odyssey, you get to play as a little bunny relaxing, and you get rewarded for catching him at the right time, being honoured with little pictures that work as collectibles.

Feeling cute xoxo

I can’t count how many times I’ve come into the game and caught Tsuki interacting with the items I have placed around. And that fills me with jubilance seeing him doing something and taking a picture. The game mostly progresses by itself, but turning on the app and seeing him interacting just brings a nice feeling of success almost. Like you did the right thing.

To decorate your little tree-house, you have several forms of attaining carrots (The main currency in the game). For one, you have your carrot farm (are we farming… money?) which are available every two hours.

You can also fish in any designated fishing spot. You unlock these the more into the game you progress and get different buildings; although keep in mind that this is a limited resource, and the more you fish the less fish there will be until you let them respawn with time. This one is the most consistent form of getting money, getting three bounties for fish every day that pay extra for them, so fishing and hoarding them is encouraged, but you can definitely just sell your scaly friends for less of a profit at any given time whenever you’re in a carrot emergency.

Tsuki contemplating the meaning of life.

The charming thing about Tsuki’s Odyssey is the fact that the game is meant to be played in slow bursts. You can play several times throughout the day, but eventually you run out of things to do and can return in around two hours to continue your adventure.

But everytime you return, you’ll catch Tsuki interacting with the furniture bought from Yori’s General Store, be it cleaning, or actually having a unique animation to a specific piece you bought and you just got lucky and stumbled upon him using it.

And although the shops you unlock throughout your adventures do have opening and closing times, the general store is open at all times of the day, so you can just hop in and check what furniture he has in stock at 3 AM. And it’s important to check his store for not only beautiful furniture to give that spunk to your tree-house, but also for gacha tickets to be able to get a little figurine with stats to add to your collectibles.

You might get better prices for your Red Snapper’s carcass in the black market.

I’m not too sure what the gacha works for, but the simple fact that I get to collect little figurines just shivers me to the core with excitement for the future in which I will own every single one and call myself the ultimate collector.

The cast of characters in Tsuki’s Odyssey feel very much genuine. Some of them can be very friendly and are an absolute joy to speak to every time it's available, while some others I tend to avoid. However, I really do appreciate the fact that they aren’t bland and superficial. I do adore flawed characters when they aren’t too flawed and annoying, and whenever they do annoy me, I just make use of the pester system; it’s something you can disable, but whenever you click on a given resident too much they start getting upset.

One thing to keep in mind is that I don’t religiously talk to them everytime I log in, so I am not entirely sure how repetitive their dialogue is. This is just a habit I picked up after playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons and realised that if I talk to them any more than once a week I will get repeated dialogue.

That’s it, reptile. I’M TOUCHING THE TREE.

And not to forget the beautiful music and graphic design. The colours feel like they pop in a device with a decent enough screen to hold up to Tsuki’s Odyssey’s beauty. And not to forget how gorgeous the game looks on OLED displays.

You can buy a little premium form of the game that gives you an infinite bag, and some extra furniture. But apart from that, I haven’t really seen any big differences and according to their Discord server, it doesn’t add to the story and is merely just that, a way to get infinite bag space and new furniture in stock.

Apart from that, Tsuki’s Odyssey is a free game. And although that tends to be atrocious for mobile, the only forms of ads you get are a salesman that gives you carrots for watching the ad, and Camille the chameleon that hides around trying to camouflage from you; and if you find her offers you to watch an ad for carrots. Very unobtrusive ads that I’m always happy to watch to support the developers and get some free veggies.

And they seem to respawn around the same time as the carrots, which means that every two hours you can get a burst of money which is always accepted.

Honestly, don’t ask me if Tsuki’s exercising, farming, or taking a dump. I just don’t know.