izigame.me

I initially saw this game as just "Oh it's a cute art game" and brushed it off for a couple years before finally playing it. BOY WAS I A FOOL! Chicory might honestly be one of the most heartfelt and special games to ever be created.
This game has SO MUCH going for it. It's overall cutesy presentation, so many small and neat details, the dialogue between all of the characters is so precious and all of their individual personalities shine through. Lena Raine's music deserves special attention, it is SO FREAKIN' GOOD! From the catchy ambient tunes used as background tracks, to soft heart tugging melodies, to its intense, synth heavy, and groovy Celeste-like boss themes, there are so many hits in there! And that story...
OOOOuuUUUUUuuuGGGGHHhHhghHGHGgHGhhghhh!!! It's so down to earth yet heart tugging, and I'm sure that everyone can at the very least relate to and resonate with something the game touches upon, especially if you like to engage in creative practices. It looks very simple and lighthearted at first, but it's a lot more meaningful with it's emotional and mental themes.
As for the actual gameplay itself, think of the game itself like a Zelda-like adventure game, exploring the world and solving puzzles, only that you have a paintbrush to paint the world to interact with it, kinda like Splatoon now that I think about it. The appeal of the gameplay itself is that you can basically draw and color in the world of Picnic Province, the only limit is your color palette and your own creativity. Chicory's not even too bad as an art program! It's super limited sure, but you can really make some really striking art with it, either using the game's environments, or the dedicated canvases in the art academy. The game also saves the entire process and allows you to export almost everything as a Gif just as a nice cherry on top. Design-wise the game is amazingly solid, being fairly linear at the start for the story, but opening more and more things up as you explore and gain new abilities. The world is interconnected so well and gets getting from point a to b very quick and easy, and the hint system is really thorough so you pretty much always have a good idea of what to do! It's a fairly comfortable experience the whole way through!
Chicory is a labor of love from those who made it. It's an absolute gem of a game, and absolutely worth sticking with it from beginning to end. Please do yourself a favor and get this game. It is worth far more than its full asking price. It gets my highest recommendation.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale truly is a work of art.
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So uh... Thanks for reading this dumb hecking review.
I tried expressing how good Chicory is as a game and as an experience, and it is just that... but for me it's also something a lot more personal, so I'm writing this entirely separate section for those that care enough to read it. Objectivity goes out of the window here so I do apologise haha.
I do a fair amount of creative work myself. Despite this though I don't really consider myself an artist. Some of my works I'm decently proud of what I did and was able to produce, but more often than not I find a lot of my creations very lacking or just plain bad. I also have several artist friends and I can't help but find myself comparing my work to theirs often, and feeling incompetent or talent-less in comparison, even when I make something that I put a huge amount of time and effort into, it usually pales in comparison to them. Safe to say that I doubt myself a lot when it comes to my own artistic ability.
Then comes along Chicory with it's own story about how the characters deal with their own self doubt, expectations, their need to prove themselves and what they are able to achieve. I found myself relating to a lot to Pizza (or Pancake in my playthrough) and their insecurities. Chicory herself I also saw a lot of my artist friends in, with Pancake being inspired and looking up to them, to how she acts and what she does. With almost every line of dialogue hitting so close to home, and it hit hard, REALLY hard. In a sense the journey felt really personal to me funnily enough, and it was really inspiring to see the character face and overcome their own doubts and hardships. It hit so many of the right notes for me that at the time, I probably really needed to hear, and I can't thank the game or its developers enough for doing just that. It was really something special for me.
Again sorry for the whole spiel, but thank you for bearing with me regardless and reading the whole thing haha.
Hope you'll have a good rest of your day!