Gabbuchi is a game that, until i had downloaded it, i had never even heard of, i saw it in the "leaving soon" page on playstation plus and seeing the cute tamagotchi inspired graphics, downloaded it and gave it a try, and what i got was one of the cutest game i've played on the console. The game itself has an interesting developer in the form of HAND, who had a *hand* in the game "tamagotchi party on!" For the wii, which may be where the tamagotchi influence for the games visual style comes from, the fact it was them alone had very much sold me on the game, as well as by the fact it was localised by aksys games, a very big western otome publisher! So with all this i gave the game a download and i did not regret it.

The game starts off simple, your main mechanic is munching on blocks, you can eat blocks of the same colour as you, ikaruga style, and blocks of a different colour you can stand on and use as platforms, with this is where things stem from, you'll have blocks that only appear after you touch them, enemies to avoid and black blocks you cannot eat, its all simple but it works with what the game is going for, it almost feels like it would fit in on a tamagotchi and it's all just so cute, the music feels NHK-core, if you know then you know, but it has that vibe to it, between the domo reminiscent main character to the music which feels like it could have came from japanology plus. That vibe carries throughout the game, it always stays cute even when it gets more difficult and the music always maintains that happy tone, it's just the kind of nice, simple aesthetic you need every once in a while.

The spritework is also adorable, gabbuchi himself is consistently charming, with tons of cute animations both in and out of levels, it's hard not to love the work that went into it, I'd love to see more in this style! The lil guy just wants to munch and when he does much its always so cute, it pushed me to do better in levels just to see animations of him feeling happy, it's lovely. Though getting those good results is not always easy, the second half of the game is difficult to beat, but even more difficult to 100%, I'm really not sure I could ever manage it, as much as I did try. The runtime will vary between runs, if you do decide to 100% the game, it will last you a good while, maybe 8-10 hours, but my more chilled playthrough only lasted about 5/6 which is a perfect length for what it is, it stayed fun, fresh and it didn't overstay its welcome, which is great because I'm not sure a game this simple could have worked at a longer length.

the game excises a story altogether, but it doesn't really need one at all and there isn't a ton of postgame contetnt either beyond a very cool level creator that i played around with a little. it's just a small simple game and sometimes that's all you need. the game was sadly never given a physical release or any kind of sequel and has been mostly forgotton over time, which is a real shame, it's nothing groundbreaking even for a puzzle game but it does what it does super well and it has fantastic vibes and aesthetics to boot, it's cheap so give it a try sometime, or maybe you can catch it on ps plus before it leaves!