CookieRun: Darkest Night Review

TL;DR CookieRun：至暗之夜 – 第 1 章
（玩过并体验过 Meta Quest 3 128 GB 型号）

Released this winterVR gamesmiddle, CookieRun:Darkest Night – Chapter 1 (for the sake of brevity, we'll call it CookieRun, although other games from the publisher share the same name) stands out as a promising candidate. Its beautiful trailer is filled with vibrant characters and gives a real sense of story, adventure, charm, and — oh (hell) yes — whimsy.

Seeing the trailer for this cookie game here, I was reminded of colored gems, like Great God or Ni no Kuni 或《塞尔达》系列的约三分之二； 吉卜力式的奇幻欢闹游戏，其充满活力、风格化的美学为壮观的冒险和深刻、有趣的游戏玩法奠定了基础！

Unfortunately, this isn't one of those games. not by a long lens.

story

CookieRun lets you play Ginger Brave, The Chosen One, the only cookie without the word "cookie" in its name. The prophecy says that you will be the one to finally lead your people out of the dangerous castle where you are baked.

"Wake up, Link!" says the glowing fairy who begins your journey, adding or subtracting a few words. In this bit of familiarity and more, CookieRun shows just how much it want to It is a VR Legend of Zelda game. I want that too. Biscuit Saga succeeds in at least one respect: its complete disregard for sensible world-building.

While I wasn't exactly expecting the realism of Biscuit Games, I still found that it lacked the usual focus on internal logic found in the fantasy genre.

Why are they called "Dark Lord Cookies" when they are obviously made from devil's food cake? Why is falling sometimes a fatal threat and other times a cutscene and slide whistle? Why could Biscuit be cured by eating meat? Why does meat come from bonsai trees? (!)

The unsatisfying but honestly understandable implicit answer is “If you can suspend your disbelief and play VR Cookie Messiah, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Okay, fair enough. While, no, I wasn't exactly expecting the realism of Cookie Game, I still found that it lacked the usual focus on internal logic found in the fantasy genre - especially something with so much dialogue - even if it was just a brief, cute The incarnation of the genre.

To be fair, there are probably a lot of loose threads just because this game is the first act in a three-act series. Arguably, the first priority of the first act should really be fleshing out the characters and relationships before diving deeper into the world. So if this is what ends up happening in the second and third acts, feel free to let me know and I will retract this particular criticism. If someone didn't tell me, I wouldn't know.

Okay, why am I putting so much emphasis on the story here? Well, because the game takes story very seriously. In many ways, CookieRun feels less like a game and more like a storybook that you have to interact with to progress through the levels. The gameplay in Cookie Storybookie is actually very easy and even hard to fail.

Gameplay

For combat: Your candy cane sword has a huge hitbox and also acts as a shield. Enemies (including bosses) fall quickly, as your attack speed is limited only by your own ability to swing your hands wildly. You have invincible pets to help you in battle. You'll take a ton of hits before falling. And healing meats are plentiful, too. If you die for any reason, you will respawn to the nearest safe location No result.

The puzzles are also completely unchallenging. The most common type of puzzle is one where you have to rotate a symbol until it matches the symbol above. If that's not simple enough, you can even not look at the corresponding symbol and just try to rotate the symbol below it 360°. The game will stop you from spinning more than the correct answer, and you'll be rewarded with Brave Souls, a currency used to upgrade Ginger's health and stamina, much like Soul Orbs in Breath of the Wild.

Unfortunately, these novelty gimmicks do little to address the game's core problem of lack of challenge.

In terms of cool VR-specific mechanics, the game takes cues from thrillers like Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life: Alyx (which is fun). Interactions that would normally be accomplished on an overlay menu (such as pulling up a map, drawing a weapon, or hiding an item) are instead accomplished by bringing the controller to the relative location on the body where those items are stored. To check your health or summon your pet, you can interact with a watch-like magic bracelet.

Unfortunately, these newfangled gimmicks do little to address the game's core problem of lack of challenge (and therefore lack of potential for traffic). Gameplay is a verdant, winding, unique path - decorated with levers and bubbles - that leads you to the next piece of dialogue.

and have a lot of Conversational… Conversations that cannot be skipped.

Not only is the dialogue unskippable, but hey, it's also poorly written! Normally, when an NPC is speaking, you are not allowed to move outside their designated radius. Already figured out what you want to do next in the game? Just want to try it out? so terrible! Cookie Wizard thinks he is very talkative now. So you have to wait in the slow dialogue until the NPC exhibition robot prints the paper that says "GO".

When you're not physically tethered to NPCs, the game will find other creative ways to stop you in your tracks until it's all over.

Like I thought if I shot a slingshot at those juicy bits of meat hanging from a bonsai tree, they would fall off. But oh well, I guess not...wait, what is that, a dwarf NPC? Should I shoot hanging meat with a slingshot? Excellent, good idea! Now - because you just told me to do this - it works!

Hey, the puzzle on the witch's desk is missing three pieces! Maybe I should find them and put them back where they belong. Oh my gosh, nothing happened...wait, what is that Alchemist cookie? No, I've seen the puzzle, put the pieces back together, and - oh... now that you've told me I should solve the puzzle, the solved puzzle has turned into a portal MacGuffin! great!

Now, when I say the rich, unskippable dialogue is poorly written, I'm basically just saying it's for kids. Depending on the level of language used, VR may be suitable for children too young. This book is poorly written, just as Dora the Explorer was arguably poorly written. It's repetitive and overly expository in an effort to ensure a six-year-old understands what's going on.

This may seem weird, I'm basically complaining about a media where you play the chibi counterpart of a gingerbread man who turns out to be for babies, as if the aesthetic doesn't give it away. But this isn't a movie. this is a video game (sort of).

Games have long challenged their own bubble aesthetic with challenging gameplay. To see what I mean, just take the shortest possible distance from the concept of a video game to the closest concrete example: Mario games have long made it clear that bright smiling clouds and happy dancing flowers are perfectly compatible with challenge.

Studio FreshDoh 的团队！ 确实做得非常出色，充分利用了 MetaQuest 3.硬件能力。

So I refute the idea that a game's visuals are enough to judge its difficulty. But when we talk about visual effects - it must be said -CookieRun is absolutely gorgeous.

Each character is well conveyed through their design and their magical world is full of life. Visual attention to detail is evident throughout the backgrounds and sets. The flames of candles and glowing spirits light up the atmosphere on tabletops and bookshelves where your little gingerbread feet rest.

The team at Studio FreshDoh! It does a really good job, taking full advantage of the Meta Quest 3 hardware capabilities. I often find myself gazing at the landscape from above, admiring the beauty of this heartwarming fairy tale.

Oh dear reader, how i wish I can end this on a high note and have no more complaints. But while the developers put a lot of love into the visuals, there was a complete lack of attention to sound design. Many key moments that should have major sound effects don't, ruining the immersion and making things feel weightless and unfinished.

In other ways, the sound design didn't accurately reflect the space I was in. Loud, obviously close footsteps may be the product of distant enemies. The dubbing is also spot on. Some characters attract you with charm or gravitas, while others - again, you're proactive forced Listen – it’s so annoying.

And bugs! Bugs, both minor and major, abound: a glitchy start menu, near-constant and silent haptic feedback that forced me to turn off the feature, repeated inability to open my item pack, and a buggy save state that wiped me off the map every time The time it takes me to load the game.

Since launch, the development team has released a patch to address some bugs and sound issues, so there's at least hope that the first entry in the series might get enough TLC to turn things around.

have a lot of The potential here. If the developers continue to love it - perhaps adding a harder difficulty mode, and the option to skip dialogue - then CookieRun could be a real winner.

But even so, $25 With around three to eight hours of gameplay (maybe even two if you subtract the screams), I can only recommend it if you have the extra cash, a love of whimsical aesthetics, and a thirst for a challenge is zero.

judgment

CookieRun is an unfinished game with a lot of good ideas and great visuals. Considering the hardware, you'd be hard-pressed to expect a more polished game. But the beautiful and inventive mechanics are marred by bugs, slow pacing, poor audio, and an exciting level of ease.

I want this game to be great, and if the development team pays enough attention, it might even achieve that. But for now, there are too many obstacles standing in the way of my feelings should It's a good game.

If you're interested in taking a guided tour of a small but beautiful world of wonder, or if you want to crush the power fantasy of Candy Land, then this game might be for you!

otherwise, CookieRun: Darkest Night – Chapter 1 get one 4/10.

Scoring and Scoring Criteria

The rating is out of 10, where 10 is a masterpiece, 1 is the opposite, and 5 is just average. Gameplay is weighted more heavily in the overall score.

Gameplay – 2
Immersion – 7
Visual Effects – 10
Sound – 4
Performance – 3
Replayability – 5

Image/video credit: Studio FreshDoh! / Youtube. Screenshots and GIFs: Auganix