Social sim Minabo – A walk through life from SelectaPlay and Devilish Games is definitely a different type of experience on Switch. Find out why in our Minabo – A walk through life review!

 

Are you ready for a hand-drawn social sim by Devilish Games and SelectaPlay in which you will get to experience the life of a turnip? Then have I got a game for you! Minabo – A walk through life has a turnip as its main protagonist. In fact, the game’s name is a play on turnip being nabo in Spanish, which means mi nabo would mean my turnip.

The game is an interesting social sim with two options for playing. There’s Mission Mode, which acts as the game’s main campaign. For Mission Mode, you’ll need to meet specific criteria to beat said missions to progress. The other one is Free Mode, which acts as an Endless Mode that asks you to try and see how long you can last. To unlock Free Mode, you’ll first need to beat five levels in Mission Mode since this will be the game’s way of teaching you all of the basics so that when you do go and play in Free Mode, you understand how the game works.

 

The game has no voice acting and is all text-based, which is not necessarily a bad thing. As the game is a social sim, the four main meters you need to keep an eye on are: physical contact, which has a heart symbol; intimacy, which shows as a speech bubble; belonging, which has the family symbol; and life expectancy, which has the skull symbol. Making sure all are maxed for the best results is going to be a must, even if you eventually won’t be able to do much about life expectancy since, you know, people get old and pass away.

When your character sprouts from the ground, the baby turnip won’t be able to walk until age two. Your interactions with your parents determine the personality it will develop, making it insecure, confident, reliant on others, and so on. With every step that your turnip takes, it will continue to age. For example, your first mission asks you to live beyond 40 years. I walked a ton and interacted with many characters along the way and managed to reach 52 years of age before my turnip was no more. The second time around, I ended at 54 years of age. As for my third run, I couldn’t make it past 48 years, so I probably didn’t learn from my mistakes for that one!

 

The more you interact with other characters and pay attention to their needs and their reactions to your actions, the easier it will be to form new relationships. As for friendship, there are plenty of turnip NPCs to make friends with, even become best friends with. Keeping close to your best friend and you can grow old together. Sometimes your relationship with a best friend can evolve into a romance if they are interested in you, so be sure to keep that in mind! Make the most of your time with your companions because your parents, friends, significant other, and even your pet will eventually pass away, leaving a gravestone behind.

Minabo – A walk through life is out today on Nintendo Switch is a minimalist 2D social sim. As you form new relationships and get closer to those around you, you’ll get older and form bonds that could last for a lifetime… a life that might not be that long if you make some wrong choices along the way! I did enjoy my time with the game, and I see plenty of potential for the development team to improve on the formula for an eventual sequel. Minabo – A walk through life is out today on Nintendo Switch for $14.99.

Disclaimer
This Social sim Minabo – A walk through life review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by SelectaPlay.