Button City, a game developed and published by Subliminal Gaming, is somehow both familiar and innovative in an engaging way. The number of nostalgic strings that the game pulls on over the course of its playtime makes this brand-new title feel like something that has always been there, to the benefit of both its own gameplay design and those experiencing it.
Button City is a comedic RPG, and its story and depth of quests are easily the game’s main draw and the main source of most of its sentimentality. While on the surface it may seem very standard, the genuine sincerity with which Button City tells its story bleeds out of the experience and has the player invested to the point of laughing along with what might otherwise feel like a saccharine or cheesy narrative. The best comparison that can really be made is to a particularly good kids movie.
It's a story that is build on a foundation of predictable tropes, going so far that the main driving plot is that the new kid in town has to help save the local arcade where all of the other kids hang out from being sold off to a wealthy businessman. But Button City plays these tropes - potent for ridicule or subversion given their familiarity - completely straight and feels fresh because of it. Throughout the playtime, the player will find themselves cheering for an outcome they know is coming despite themselves. It's narrative comfort food and that's all it really needs to be.
As with many games that focus more on narrative, the moment-to-moment gameplay of Button City can be a little lacking. The majority of the player’s time will be taken up with completing quests for the charming and colorful cast of characters that can be interacted with all over the various areas of the small town that the game takes place in. Most of these quests are their own side stories that help flesh out at least one character in the world and really make it feel lived-in. From conspiratorial raccoons to agoraphobic neighbors to wrestling grannies, the variety of strange characters whose problems the main character can lend a hand with make these stories worth pursuing, even if most of them tend to boil down into glorified fetch quests. These interactions are more than their own reward, but for those looking for something a mite bit more tangible, in standard RPG fashion, these quests also reward the player with some currency.
In an ironic twist, despite Button City’s story revolving around an arcade, there isn’t much emphasis given to most of the actual playable arcade games in the main story, though there are side quests that delve into each one. The exception to this is Gobabots, a gacha brawler where two teams of four compete to throw the most berries into a smoothie, which actually sets the plot in motion and provides more conflict via a tournament that runs throughout the narrative. The other playable offerings in the arcade include a Dance Dance Revolution inspired rhythm game called Prisma Beats and a racing game with a focus on drifting called rEVolution Racer. Both games are very fun, though they are a bit short.
The standout between them is easily Prisma Beats, which, for being a minigame, is a more than serviceable DDR clone with a surprising number of songs. These games' brevity is alleviated somewhat with replayability being added thanks to the inclusion of “Fluff Buffs” which are items that can be used before playing any of the arcade games which add anything from cosmetic changes to new difficulty and game modes. Even though these games are mostly icing on the story's cake, there is definitely enough to them for players to get quite invested.
Despite the copious amount of charm that Button City has, this does not mean that it is infallible, and it does have its problems. The most glaring of these were a few game-breaking glitches that caused loading issues when coming out of or going into a game of Gobabots which forced restarts and did result in some lost progress. It should be noted that this only happened on two occasions , both being outside of the critical path, and the game's autosaves meant that nothing important was lost. There were also some issues with speech bubbles triggering at odd times or sometimes not at all, as well as some dodginess with trying to highlight small objects, but both were very minor and are likely to be patched out.
In terms of gameplay, the biggest problem was with trying to use a controller for Prisma Beats, as some of the required button combinations could not easily be performed on it, though this could be a personal hang-up. Fortunately, keyboard controls are both available as a substitute and work quite well.
Button City wants its audience to feel warm and to remember all of the things that they enjoyed when they were kids, and it succeeds in that goal. It feels right at home beside any media from the era it’s invoking.
Button City will be releasing on August 10th, 2021 for Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC and Mac. Screen Rant was provided a digital Steam code for the purposes of this review.