Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Review

Snoozy Kazoo has brought one of the craziest named games I have personally seen; Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. Tax evasion isn’t the usual topic of games, let alone a turnip not paying his taxes so I had to see for myself how this could be a fun game. As soon as the game begins we meet our tax evading hero Turnip Boy. He’s super cute, very quiet and has a penchant for tearing any paper he sees. Turnip Boy is in huge financial trouble, he receives a tax bill from Mayor Onion stating that he owes a whopping $143,753 in tax on his Greenhouse that is located in Veggieville. The bill also makes sure to say that this also includes “like 50% interest”. If he doesn’t pay the deed to his Greenhouse it will go directly to the Mayor. Turnip Boy responds by ripping up the bill.

Mayor Onion is not impressed, he claims that since Turnip Boy has screwed himself over he will now be the Mayor’s personal assistant running errands and completing tasks that he assigns. Turnip’s first task is to exterminate livestock at Bustling Barn. So you steal Old Man Lemon’s watering can and head on your way. You will discover that Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is influenced by the Legend of Zelda games, especially Link to the Past. To get to the barn you will need a sword to cut down the vegetation that is blocking your path. This sword is known as the Soil Sword and once you find it in the mysterious woods the game states “It’s dangerous to grow alone, take this!”

Turnip Boy has three different actions he can perform, trip, use or switch. Trip is like a small dash, lets you perform an action with your equipped item and the switch command lets you change which item in your inventory is currently in your hand. You will end up switching between your watering can and your sword a lot more than you may expect. The watering can is used to grow BoomBlooms, which are bombs that you can kick into walls, boulders or enemies once you have Boom Boots. It will also be used to create portals to move you or a bomb you are kicking from one to the other.

There are tons of cute fruit and vegetable characters that you will come across. The healthier type foods are usually the good guys, then the sweets are the bad guys. Lollipops, cupcakes that love to feast on cherries and donuts that won’t hesitate to attack. While travelling there are a lot of hazards that can take you down, even a snail because don’t forget they are vegetarian and you are a veggie. Rabbits, deer, fish and all the animals would love to have you as a snack. Besides all the wildlife trying to eat the fruit and veggie characters you discover that they have to deal with issues like “the rot” that takes their loved ones. It’s kind of dark when you think about it.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion has a 16-bit aesthetic look to it. The music is cute but can definitely get repetitive after a while. The game has a great sense of humour and is full of silly food puns. One character is a beet and since she’s a gamer who streams she tells you that she only lets "3rd tier subs" through. You discover that she’s not talking about being a subscriber to her stream, she means an actual sub. I also love the fact that Turnip Boy can not resist ripping every single piece of paper he finds. Even if you don’t want to tear it up you only have two options: to read it or rip it. I did feel a little guilty when the one construction worker showed me his work permit and I tore it to shreds.

Most of the game is fetch quests, either for the Mayor himself or the random other characters you run into along the way. A lot of the time you will have to get an item and backtrack to an area you were in before. It gets a little tricky to remember where all the characters are when Turnip obtains the item that they were requesting. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion does not have a map system that you can reference to see how to get back to these areas so it will take some exploring or a really good memory to find the location you are looking for.

Each quest you end up completing for the Mayor ends with a boss battle. I found these fights to be challenging and a lot of fun. If you play and do find that you are dying a lot, the game has the option right in the start menu to turn on God Mode or increase Turnip Boy’s strength. Snoozy Kazoo wanted to make sure that everyone could enjoy the game no matter your skill level so they added that option. They have also added the option to turn on a Speedrunner timer for anyone who is interested in trying to speed run the game.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a ton of fun, and a lot more entertaining than the title may suggest. If you are not a big fan of games that have you doing a bunch of fetch quests and backtracking this may not be a title you will be interested in. If that is up your alley Turnip Boy is a super cute and funny game that isn’t terribly long, but is fun for the whole duration. I do suggest having a piece of paper and keeping track of where the characters requesting items are so when you have to backtrack you know where you need to go. Unless, unlike me, you have a great memory.