Cozy games have become incredibly popular over the years, with Tales of Seikyu being the latest to join the life-sim arena. It has a lot of interesting ideas, built on the foundation of yokai and their associated powers that the main character can transform into. It’s also really pretty, with a great art style and memorable characters. It does falter, though, with the open world being empty, basic combat, a terrible map in the dungeon, and performance and technical issues. It has all the right pieces but feels unrefined and early, despite the 1.0 launch.
Tales of Seikyu kicks off with a fairly simple character creator, where you can make your male or female character with a decent amount of options. From the hair to the eye colour, which can be two different colours entirely, you have a good bit of leeway to make your new adventurer your own. It’s not as granular as other entries, but it works well enough for what it is.
This is, unfortunately, where the technical issues already begin. Despite me spending time on designing my cozy game staple main character (Gintoki from Gintama), the character portrait in-game always showed the default red-haired protagonist. It took me out of the experience every time and was unfortunate that I couldn’t see my version of the character.
“Tales of Seikyu has all the right pieces but feels unrefined and early, despite the 1.0 launch.”
Once your character is set, your journey to the island of Seikyu begins. You and Kon make your way to your new home, the only known members of the Fox clan. Seikyu is where the Fox clan used to call home, making the journey back to your old home one of discovery. Where did the Foxes go? Are there any other surviving members? Working with the spirits of the past Foxes, you start to dig into the mysteries at the heart of Seikyu.
Narratively, Tales of Seikyu is largely fine. It has some fun moments, and the central mystery is effective in keeping the player on the hook as they strive to find out what’s next. It’s never all that surprising, but it’s built on the foundation of a strong cast of characters you’re excited to get to know. From the pink-haired, good-natured mayor in Yui to the gruff, combat-loving Nyotengu, each new face is memorable and leaves the player interested in finding out more about them.
Tales of Seikyu has all the major cozy draws – fishing, cooking, farming, romance, crafting, and decorating are on full display. All these systems work well and are mostly what you’d expect. Your home and farm start small, but as you invest time into it, it grows and changes. Adding animals, and even a monster ranch, alongside automations that can take the grunt work out of daily life, there are tons of ways to make your new home something wonderful. The festivals are another bright spot, with the early fishing festival transforming the town with carp kites flying all over and fun scenes.
The most interesting bit here is the yokai transformations, which replace most standard tools you’d expect to find. Transforming into a boar lets you stomp the ground, making it usable for farming. You’ll unlock more transformations, including a blue slime that lets you spit water out to water your crops. The Tengu transformation lets you soar the skies as a giant crow-being, which is constantly fun and helps cut down on travel time. These transformations help Tales of Seikyu feel genuinely new in the cozy genre, a fun twist on established mechanics.
The issue is, unlocking most of these transformations is hopelessly boring and frustrating. Combat in Tales of Seikyu looks flashy and fast, but it lacks impact and makes you feel like you’re just cutting through paper. There are only a few enemy types as well, but most of them function the same despite varying looks. It’s not engaging and doesn’t require much more from the player outside of mashing attacks to get through the enemy’s health bar.
Each weapon only has a couple moves, and once you buy higher-tier weapons, it makes most fights trivial. Most of these transformations are found in the Fox Ruins, a series of interconnected rooms, each requiring something to be done to advance. The thing is, each room’s goal feels totally random. You may need to kill the enemies, or you may just need to run around hitting rocks until one triggers the door to open. There isn’t any rhyme or reason to it. Rather than a series of combat or puzzle challenges, it just has you running through similarly looking cave rooms until you stumble onto something new.
“Combat in Tales of Seikyu looks flashy and fast, but it lacks impact and makes you feel like you’re just cutting through paper.”
It doesn’t help that the map is utterly confusing and hard to read. All the hallways and rooms overlap and twist over each other, making teleporting back to your further checkpoint a guessing game. Warp to one, realize it’s wrong, warp to another, hope it’s correct. It makes an already boring section of the game even more frustrating, doubly so when it’s as important to progression as it is.
The open world is also largely empty. There are enemies to fight, but there’s a stamina system that makes each action drain your overall stamina. From fishing to fighting, getting caught with low stamina is never fun, especially with a limited starting inventory to carry healing resources. You end up running past them more than engaging with them, or just fast-travelling around them entirely.
There are some puzzles and things to find, but they’re few and far between. It’s just not very interesting. It feels like Seikyu wants you to explore and collect resources, and there are some really beautiful areas to find, but the reward for doing so isn’t usually worth it. Once I got the Tengu, I spent most of the time in the air, quickly flying to a place, getting what I needed, and flying back out.
Tales of Seikyu also has technical issues that hamper the experience. It’s a beautiful game, but there’s plenty of pop-in, with textures and enemies spawning in as you move. The frame rate is also inconsistent, with random drops and prolonged slowdowns as you play for longer sessions. I tested across a powerful laptop that has no issues running Forza Horizon 6 at max settings, and the Steam Deck, and both encountered the same issues, which were even more prevalent on the Deck. It is playable, but does have issues. I also got stuck on the geometry more than once, along with needing a couple of crashes.
“Cozy gamers will find plenty to enjoy, but Tales of Seikyu is an experience that feels mid-transformation.”
Another major point of frustration is that much of the early game in Tales of Seikyu is spent just waiting. The task board gives you quests to do, but completing them becomes a challenge. You can’t go into most of the villagers’ homes, and depending on when you finish the quest, you’re left standing around and waiting for them to come out so you can turn it in and move on.
Some come out at odd hours, and when you have multiple complete quests for apparent homebodies who love to be inside, it can grind progression to a halt. Thankfully, you can speed the game clock up, but it’s still frustrating waiting and guessing at the time when you can finally progress on.
Overall, Tales of Seikyu has interesting ideas that are let down by technical issues and lacklustre mechanics. It is charming and full of heart, which kept me engaged, but with basic combat, frustrating maps, and a boring open world, it’s an experience that still feels early access despite the jump to 1.0. Cozy gamers will find plenty to enjoy, but Tales of Seikyu is an experience that feels mid-transformation.
