Review: Friendly Steps
Going home after drinking too much has never been so complicated.
THE GAME
Friendly Steps is a cooperative comedy game developed by KORO.GAMES and distributed by Ytopia. You and your friends are drinking at a bar, but drinking a lot. Suddenly you receive a call demanding that you return home immediately. Unable to walk properly, you don't know what to do, but your friends have the solution: tie a rope around your bodies and walk together. The problem is that everyone is drunk, so this walk will be a great challenge. Controlling each step, you and your friends must overcome various obstacles to finally reach your goal.
MY IMPRESSIONS
Mix comedy with bizarre physics and controls, and you get Friendly Steps. Despite this, the idea is simple: control your steps, one at a time. So far, it seems complicated, but nothing impossible. But from the moment you have to do this while tied to other people, chaos ensues. Friendly Steps only works well when played with more people, even better if they are your friends. If you don't have friends, you can still find online rooms to play with strangers. The game provides voice chat to facilitate interaction. As the game itself announces, it has intentionally irritating gameplay to generate funny or extremely frustrating moments. The paths to be taken are truly challenging, as you need to focus on both your movement and that of your companions, because if you stray too far from the person tied to you, the rope stretches too much and causes you or your friends to fall. Coordination is the key to success in Friendly Steps.
The game is in Brazilian Portuguese, which makes it easier to follow the story and understand the jokes in the game. Speaking of jokes, Friendly Steps is full of humorous references. In addition, you can interact with items scattered around the map, such as bottles of alcoholic beverages, mushrooms, and hamburgers, which will have some temporary side effects. You can do some side missions along the way if you want to add an extra challenge. Your character is customizable, and during your journey, you can find new elements to unlock in the customization. Friendly Steps gives you a lot of freedom to explore. With side missions and some alternative paths, it's interesting to explore the map, however difficult it may be to coordinate the movement. It's that typical game made to play without commitment, to laugh and get annoyed in a fun way, but that fun depends much more on playing with your friends than with random people.
ACHIEVEMENTS
The achievements in Friendly Steps are, by far, the game's biggest challenge. Starting with the simple ones, some achievements are unlocked by completing areas of the map, i.e., progressing through the game. There are also achievements related to in-game interactions, from simple ones like slipping on a banana peel and drinking 50 bottles of alcohol, to more complicated ones involving delivering items to characters on the map. However, the real challenge lies in three achievements: unlocking all customizable visuals, completing the game falling only 50 times, and completing the game in hardcore mode. These three achievements alone make achieving 100% of the achievements a very difficult task.
CONCLUSION
Friendly Steps will appeal to both casual players and those looking for a real challenge. Its simple controls and intentionally irritating gameplay are the formula for funny situations, even if they can generate moments of extreme anger. Although it has an online mode for those who don't have friends or friends who don't own the game, the player misses much of the fun experience if they don't play with their group of friends. The jokes are everywhere and dictate the tone of the game: a light and relaxed experience to spend some fun time with your friends.
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