izigame.me

I recommend this game, but with the understanding that this game still has areas that could use improvement in my opinion.
The Positive:
-Running the bathhouse is extremely fun and engaging. I love running around serving all the different spirits. There's always something to do, even when you hire helpers (especially once you have a bunch of upgrades and thus introduce other things to take care of). I also love having to take into account what each spirit type is and experimenting to find out which spirits like sitting next to each other.
-Wonyan's personality is super fun and very lively. The personalities of the spirits in their quests are also engaging. To some extent I would say the same for the NPCs (although I will go more in depth as to why I don't think the NPCs are quite as lively in the negative section).
-Some people think the art style is ugly, but I actually like it for the most part (although the style of your avatar is a bit of an acquired taste in my opinion). I particularly love how the bathhouse looks in the game, and I also love how the house the player lives in looks a little like the house in My Neighbor Totoro.
-I thought that the quest to introduce yourself to the NPCs was super adorable with having a dog lead you around. Usually you just have to run around and hope you run into NPCs. I loved having a dog companion sniff out the person you were looking for and lead the way. It saves the player lots of time while also giving you a furry friend to gush over!
-I've never played the old fishing minigame, but I like the new fishing game well enough. It's simple, but I find that it still provides its own challenge.
-The OST is very nice! I have some songs I prefer more than others but overall it's a great soundtrack. I also love that the bathhouse music changes from season to season (although my favorite track for the bathhouse is the spring one). I'm just to games never changing the interior music for certain places so I just thought that was a fun detail.
-I like the fact that you can invite NPCs out to do things. It makes friendships with them feel a little more dynamic, especially because the friendship system in this game is rather simplistic. Being able to invite NPCs that you like out to do certain hobbies makes me feel like I'm hanging out with a friend, which just helps me to feel closer to those NPCs.
-A lot of people have mentioned bugs in the game that have been game breaking or otherwise inconvenient. I was fortunate to not really run into any that I am aware of. I've seen that the devs have been working hard to patch these out so I believe some of the worst bugs are no longer present in the game!
The Negative:
-Bug catching feels almost impossible. I'm not exactly sure why I've found it so difficult in this game compared to other games where bug catching is an option, but I rarely have luck catching bugs in this game. I think it's because the bug catching animation takes too long, to where by the time it finishes, bugs have moved outside of your range most of the time. Because of this, I just don't like going out to catch bugs because there's no way to sneak up on them, and no way to really help your chances besides just getting really lucky.
-Generally speaking, I don't find a lot of activities outside of running the bathhouse engaging. Sure, I can fish (I'm definitely not catching bugs), but there's not really anything I can do with the majority of the fish I catch. There's no clear place to sell the fish (I've heard there's a spot where you can do it, but even then that location is open very rarely and you don't get much money from it). Most of the fish you catch can't be used for any recipes. The fish that can be used for recipes I almost never catch. There's minigames, sure, but they aren't exactly core mechanics that I'm looking to use during my play time all the time. Mainly I like using them to build friendship with NPCs, but otherwise I don't usually like to engage with them. You could argue I could spend more time befriending NPCs, but that leads me to my next point.
-The spirit quests range from tedious to just super frustrating. I acknowledge that the dev team has been working to streamline this process with having Wonyan and other NPCs give you hints. However, I've found that hints range in helpfulness. Sometimes, the hints tell me information that I already know but don't really give me more clues to help narrow down what I need to do for a certain quest. It doesn't help that sometimes Wonyan won't even recognize I have a certain quest active even though certain events in the quest have started, so I can't ask for hints if I get stuck. I've found myself frequently looking up information on certain quests, just because some quests are really difficult to know what to do. This was one of the main aspects that I would use to occupy my time outside of the bathhouse, but lately I've been running into some quests that have really frustrated me (looking at you Clarence) and I just lost all my motivation and steam to continue with that. This meant I was frequently sleeping through days and free time just so I could go back to running the bathhouse.
The Neutral:
-The NPCs do have distinct personalities and I like them, but I wish they had more dialogue and just a bit more life. I've found myself quickly running into the same dialogues all the time. Normally I wouldn't take as much of an issue with this, as in most games in the genre you usually have revamped dialogues for each season. However, from what I've seen the dialogues don't change all that much from season to season, which makes me seek out the NPCs less often.
-I like the cooking system to some extent, but I do feel like the process is a little tedious. Having a separate menu to deposit items into your desired cooking utensil feels a little redundant when I then have to go into a different menu to start the cooking process. I also think that it would be easier to select a recipe from your recipe book that would automatically put the necessary ingredients into the cooking utensil you are interacting with. It's a small thing but I think it would make a world of difference.
From my post it may sound like I don't like this game, but truly enjoy it a lot! I adored playing this and streaming it to my friends! However, I feel that while the core mechanics of this game are strong, there's some areas that could be improved when it comes to everything surrounding the bathhouse mechanic. I especially hope to see improvements when it comes to bug catching, so that it might be a little easier for players to do. I also would love to see more uses for a lot of the bugs and fish outside of donating them to the shrines (after all, there's a lot more bugs and fish than are actually required by the shrines).
As is, though, I think the game is a lot of fun and I think it's worth the price point!