Niko is a girl who has run away from home but now she needs a job.  She applies for a position as a “Professional Friend” and her boss is a small frog with a necktie.  Together they’ll travel to little areas and help out others to earn enough money to travel to the next location in this 3D platformer.  The trailer and description say it’s a game for ‘tired people,’ but I don’t know what that means.  The game was made by the same folks who did A Hat in Time, but I actually think I enjoyed this game more.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Niko can run and jump, as well as wall jump and dive to navigate the 3D areas.  The characters are presented in a flat cutout look, similar to Tinykin.  You’ll travel to levels like a public pool, bath house, campsite, and more.  In these levels you can find and talk to animals who need your help.  You’ll do pretty much the same thing in each level.  One friend wants you to collect a certain amount of bugs, another one wants to you to play volleyball and beat their score, another one wants you to help them fish, etc.  When you help out someone, you’ll earn a coin.  Earn enough coins and you can use the train to travel to the next area.  The levels have all sorts of collectables scattered about, like bugs, cassette tapes, and apples.  You can trade the cassette tapes to certain characters to get more coins, and if you have enough apples near the end of the game, you can learn a special move that seemed useless to me.  And in the loading screens and wherever you can sit down, you can pull out a virtual pet key chain and play with that.  And if you don’t know who to help, your boss frog sits at the beginning of every level to give you a hint.

The game had a few problems, though.  It was hard to judge jumps and nab collectables since everything is flat, but luckily the game is pretty easy.  It’s also a bit buggy, as I got stuck in rocks a couple of times and another time the game thought I was in water all the time and I could constantly swim in air.  That was kind of neat, though.  Since you do the same things in each level, it can get repetitive at times.  The game is also a bit short, as I was able to beat the main game in less than a week playing casually.  Some of the coins you must collect can be pretty frustrating, but luckily you only need a little more than half to beat the game, and there is a billboard in every level telling you what you can get.  Getting all the coins adds some replay value and if you get them all you’ll be Employee of the Month!  But despite these problems, I played the main game all the way through and enjoyed it.  It’s just a fun and simple, light and breezy 3D platformer.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent or objectionable here.  There are no enemies to attack and you don’t get a health bar or anything.  Some of the phone messages you get on the train about your parents and some of the things other characters say may cause some unexpected discussions with your kids, but that’s about it.  Reading skill is a must for the text, and younger gamers may need help with the tougher quests.  Here Comes Niko! is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews