It’s a good thing I browse TikTok every so often, or I may never have discovered Bloomtown: A Different Story. Much like Duck Detective—The Secret Salami, this was a game that I came across randomly since I follow basically no one, and the algorithm can’t make heads or tales of what I like. I recall noting it on my ever-growing “games to keep an eye on” list due largely to its striking visuals and seeming Earthbound inspiration.
I had said in that aforementioned list, “With such a robust amount of gameplay, there’s an incredible amount of potential for Bloomtown: A Different Story to be something really special, and I’m really hoping to be surprised by it.” And I gotta say, colour me surprised! Bloomtown: A Different Story isn’t perfect, but it gets so much right and in all the right ways that I was consistently captivated while playing it.
Although I may have been a bit hasty in comparing Bloomtown: A Different Story to Earthbound. While the influence is definitely there, this game is borrowing a lot of different ideas from a lot of different things and all to great effect! For starters—as is usual with my reviews—the story. It begins when a young girl named Emily and her little brother Chester are sent away for the summer to live with their grandfather in the mysterious Bloomtown.
Right off the bat, the game is serving hints of Gravity Falls, but things take a turn for the weird when a young girl goes missing and as Emily and Chester begin to investigate, Emily is pulled into a strange demonic world. In order to gain the power to combat these demons, Emily signs a contract with Lucifer so long as she destroys three powerful demons that have been plaguing Bloomtown. Together with her brother and some new friends, Emily must get to the bottom of what’s really going on in this supposedly sleepy little town.
It’s an incredibly engaging story that continuously unfolds in strange and oftentimes incredibly dark ways. It’s got a good sense of humour, and there’s a certain joviality to it in that kind of 80’s movie, “kids going on an adventure” kind of way. But it can also be incredibly creepy and take a dramatic shift in tone that always keeps you guessing on what to expect next.
In the gameplay department, Bloomtown: A Different Story is…well its Persona, and I don’t mean that in a bad way—like I’ve said before, wear your inspiration on your sleeve. But Bloomtown: A Different Story shakes things up a little by simplifying some of the social-sim elements and adding a touch of RNG—for better or worse. During each investigation, players will have from 9 AM to 10 PM to either dive into the Underside, or participate in a variety of tasks in the Overworld.
Players can tend a small garden, work a part-time job, read books, hang with friends, or just wander the town gathering apples. Since every activity takes a different amount of time and adventuring in the Underside takes the whole day, players will need to plan effectively to stock up on supplies or increase abilities that will help them face the many challenges that await them.
Similar to Persona, Emily also has personality traits—divided into Guts, Smarts, Fortitude and Charm—and performing different tasks will increase those stats. What I like about Bloomtown is how it finds unique ways to really make it feel like how these would apply to a child. Responding to situations honestly will often increase your Charm, while daring to defy adults will usually increase Guts.
Bloomtown: A Different Story utilizes these traits in ways that are both similar and different to Persona. For starters, certain dialogue options aren’t harshly restricted to the rank of different traits. Instead, increased rank will increase players’ percentage chance to pass a skill check based on the required stat. This adds a little spice of luck to each proceeding since there is an actual dice roll attached to it and rolling Snake Eyes will always result in a fail, while rolling a 12 will always pass.
Then there’s the combat which is more or less the same as the Shin Megami Tensei games and specifically Persona 5 although a bit more simplistic. Battles are divided between player and enemy turns and players will need to utilize either elemental attacks or guns to down an enemy. If all enemies are downed, players have a chance to either recruit a demon to their side or obliterate them with a massive All-Out attack.
However, it’s the little things that help distinguish Bloomtown: A Different Story from its inspiration. For starters, every character has a Guardian Demon which gives them access to specific elemental abilities, with more being unlocked upon levelling up—similar to Persona 5. However, unlike Persona 5 every character can have access to a second demon granting them both stat bonuses and penalties as well as different elemental abilities.
Though guns work essentially the same as they do in Persona 5—with characters having a limited amount of ammo for each battle—there’s a bit more strategy to their use in Bloomtown. The way battles are structured, if demons are behind others, they cannot be hit with physical attacks and can only be targeted with guns or magic, so players need to consider whether it’s better to spend a bullet or MP during every battle.
On top of this, the way players recruit demons is based on Emily’s personality traits rather than trying to guess how a demon might respond to certain dialogue prompts. In fact, a lot of the guesswork has been cut out of Bloomtown. Enemy info is available at the start of every battle stating what their weaknesses and strengths are without the unnecessary trial-and-error.
However, it’s not a perfect experience. For starters, like many other RPGs Bloomtown: A Different Story allows players to get the drop on an enemy—with a particularly hilarious slap animation from Emily—or potentially get dropped on if they’re not careful. However, at time of writing this doesn’t seem to matter in the slightest. Smacking an enemy doesn’t seem to give players a bonus turn, nor does it put them at a disadvantage if enemies get them first. It seems like a glaring oversight that hopefully will be addressed in the Day One patch.
There’s a degree of randomness that makes battles somewhat frustrating outside the bounds of standard RNG. Bloomtown has a “Once More” feature similar to SMT and Persona—where hitting enemies with their elemental weaknesses will grant players an additional attack. However, this seems to happen at complete random and you’re never sure if you can follow up an attack or whether it’ll just move to the next character.
Furthermore, despite certain attacks clearly stating they have “high” or “very high” chances to hit, the amount of times these same attacks seem to miss is honestly staggering. Maybe it was just me, but it often felt like it was incredibly difficult to strategize when compared to something like Persona 5 where you could really get into a solid groove downing enemies and passing attacks. It feels like the game could have done with a bit more balancing in this department.
Lastly, where Bloomtown: A Different Story could have stood to borrow a little more from SMT/Persona is in how it treats demonic fusion. Rather than combining two demons in order to create a new, more powerful one, players use a sacrificed demon to level up whichever they choose. Now, in theory, this is a fairly interesting way to approach this, allowing players to keep demons they like and simply make them stronger.
Unlike SMT/Persona where players can choose abilities from a sacrificed demon to apply to a new one, allowing for unique demons with different elemental combinations; Bloomtown: A Different Story has a percentile chance that demons will learn new abilities on a level up, and the abilities they learn is based on their current elemental capability—although this too seems a bit random.
While it’s not the absolute worst, I can’t help but feel like this significantly cuts off the growth potential of demons, and makes experimentation—which the game recommends to players—somewhat perfunctory, since players may not want to lose certain demons with specific elemental abilities. At the very least you should’ve been able to carry over one ability or choose an ability on level up like you can with Guardians.
“In the visual department Bloomtown: A Different Story is incredible.”
In the visual department Bloomtown: A Different Story is incredible. It utilizes a highly detailed 16-bit aesthetic that really brings the Underside and the town itself to life. It reminded me a lot of Potion Permit, with its beautiful range of colour, high attention to detail and approachable chibi characters. In battle, monsters have unique designs and a stunning amount of animation.
And while the production value is incredibly high, there are a few places where it falters. Some areas can chug the framerate and this is especially bad during rainy days. On top of this, the Guardian Demon attack animations have weird clocks—sometimes cutting out from their attack animations early, or hanging around for a second after. Hopefully the Day One patch can alleviate some of these issues as well.
Where Bloomtown: A Different Story really got me was its music. Every moment has an incredible score backing it, from the chill Suburban theme that has a kind of lazy summer day vibe, backed by wicked electric guitar stings, to the many Underside themes that make each area feel hostile and spooky. But the real show stealers are the battle themes. If all the other things didn’t communicate a clear love for Persona 5, the battle themes surly will.
“Bloomtown: A Different Story isn’t perfect, but honestly I don’t think it has to be.”
Every battle cycles through one of the five amazing battle themes that combine rock, jazz and funk all capped off by vocal tracks that are the best kind of cheese. Every track had me jumping in my seat and it wasn’t long before I was singing along to every one. While I dunno if its as good as “Last Surprise,” or “Take Over,” the music are so incredibly charming I was genuinely sad when I went to Bloomtown: A Different Story’s Steam Page and didn’t see a soundtrack available for purchase.
Bloomtown: A Different Story isn’t perfect, but honestly I don’t think it has to be. It borrows the best elements from SMT/Persona and delivers them in an incredibly straightforward package that may even be a perfect introduction to this kind of gameplay. Even for all the little things that annoyed me, I couldn’t stop playing this game, nor did I ever really want to.
