Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Attack of the Friday Monsters is a Graphic Adventure released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013. This game takes place in Fuji no Hana, a suburb of Tokyo where the local TV station films episodes of a popular kaiju/superhero drama, and where recently real-life Godzilla-like kaiju have been spotted stomping around every Friday, leaving massive footprints, mysterious craters, and other signs of destruction in their wake. Players take the role of Sohta, a ten year-old boy who just moved to the town, and focuses largely on his interactions with other kids his age, and the games they play around the village.

If that description seemed odd to you, it’s not because you misunderstood something. Attack of the Friday Monsters is tonally strange for a game whose story seems heavily influenced by the town being routinely tromped on by kaiju. When Sohta heads out to meet with the local kids, his parents seem unconcerned, essentially waving him out the door and warning him to be back before it gets too late because it’s dangerous. This leads to a part of the mystery of just what the heck is going on in this town, where everyone seems oddly unconcerned about the monstrous creatures that supposedly terrorize the area.

For their part, the kids are all massive fans of the kaiju TV series, and play card games featuring the kaiju. One of the optional tasks players can busy themselves with as they go through the game is to collect colorful glowing “glims” scattered around the area, which turn into a card when you collect enough of the same color. While the game gives you multiple opportunities to play this card game, it’s not particularly compelling – it’s little more than a glorified Collectible Card Game-esque version of paper-rock-scissors.

Mostly, what you’ll be doing as you play this game is tromping around the village, trying to follow around the various kids as they run around, and talking with the various residents of the village. There are some minor puzzles to solve here, but nothing particularly difficult to understand, and the indication of where you need to go on the map often removes any sort of need for problem-solving.

Really, as odd as the game’s tone may be, it is the presentation that is likely its strongest feature. The game makes use of a decent combination of 3D character models on 2D backgrounds, but what really makes it quite nice is its art style, Japanese-language voice acting, and music, which all feels reminiscent of a Miyazaki film. Everything in the game gives off a “slice of life” sorta’ atmosphere… which makes the kaiju elements all the more odd.

As for complaints, I think my biggest complaints here are that the game is somewhat slow-paced, and you often have to spend a lot of time basically running circles around the town to get to where you need to be, and this can get somewhat tedious before long.

In the end, I didn’t quite fall in love with Attack of the Friday Monsters, but I do think it has an odd sort of charm, and a delightful tone that makes it strangely comforting, even if that tone seems at odd with the game’s kaiju elements. If you’re looking for a quirky, laid-back, anime-style story, Attack of the Friday Monsters may interest you. But this game won’t appeal to everyone.

tl;dr – Attack of the Friday Monsters is a Graphic Adventure about a Tokyo suburb that supposedly finds itself under attack every week by kaiju. Yet, despite this, this game has a peaceful, relaxed tone as it follows the young children who live in this town. As a Graphic Adventure, this game is a bit slow-paced and tedious, but the presentation is so appealing and the juxtaposition of its story and tone is so interesting that players looking for a unique story on Nintendo 3DS may want to give it a look.

Grade: C+

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