[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Minestrone through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
I'm not really sure what to make of Minestrone. Is it an experimental walking-sim? Is it a tech demo? Is it a resume builder? I wouldn't expect the game to be immediately Steam Deck compatible and even after trying more than five different compatibility options, starting with Proton Experimental and working my way down the list, I eventually settled on Proton [x] because I wasn't experiencing any difference. The biggest problems I experienced during the game were that there was significant audio clipping and that the game maxed out at 16 frames per second. Because this is a walking-sim, 16 fps is still playable.
The purpose of the game is to follow a trail of what I assume to be tomatoes through an Italian city and collect ingredients from people who have a green "Talk to me" text floating above them until you have collected everything. Your tomato collection meter counts up from one to 99 and none of the tomatoes were hidden in a way that became frustrating or difficult to find. One thing that remains unclear to me is what the actual goal is, to collect 99 tomatoes, or to talk to everyone to collect the specific ingredients like garlic, thyme, and olive oil? In the game, when I collected the last tomato before I talked to the last person, the game said that I had found the final ingredient, "Good work! Your recipe is complete." And then immediately after I talked to my final NPC and the game continued until I manually quit.
The only other thing of note in the game is the NPC animations, which while incredibly blurry were very fluid and felt more lifelike than many NPCs in other modern games I've played in recent years. The NPCs didn't necessarily look like they were part of the environment in that they existed within the environment but were not active with elements such as buildings, tables, or chairs. Their animations would also loop after several seconds, but since there was only one line of dialogue per NPC, there was never a reason to stand around and watch the animations loop.
That's really all that there is to Minestrone. I completed the game in just under 16 minutes and then walked around for nearly another five minutes to see if I had missed anything. The description on Steam suggests that there are hidden easter eggs, although apart from one closed storefront with Archor Games, and an in-world advertisement telling me to check out Archor Games on Steam, I don't know what else there was so it's likely that I missed something deeper, or just another another ad.
And really, maybe that's all that Minestrone is. Just another ad for Archor Games to be like, "Hey, we can make a walking-sim in Unreal Engine 5.5."
And to watch all 20 minutes of my playthrough, I've included it below:
Nothing says a "Year in Review" like lists so let's stick with a good thing and make a tradition out of it!
We're going to start off with games and demos released in 2024 that I played, followed by games that I bought in 2024, followed by games released in 2024 that interested me that I neither played nor bought. And then we'll close everything up with both the Nintendo and Steam's lookback at 2024; with a heavy caveat that The Squire has heavily influenced both of my lists.
Games & Demos Released in 2024that I played:
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Demo (January 18)
I believe that these two games were the only games released in 2024 that I purchased but have yet to play. Although because these were games "funded" through Kickstarter, I didn't actually pay for them in 2024, I'm still allowing them here because they were released this year. Pendant semantics, I guess.
Games Released in 2024 that I Have Not Yet Bought or Played
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (January 18)
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (January 25)
Balatro (February 20)
Pentiment (February 22)
Alone in the Dark (March 20)
Dragons Dogma 2 (March 22)
Botany Manor (April 9)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants (April 23)
Another Crab's Treasure (April 25)
POOLS (April 26)
Stellar Blade (April 26)
Animal Well (May 9)
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (May 21)
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (May 23)
Still Wakes the Deep (June 18)
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (July 18)
SteamWorld Heist II (August 8)
Black Myth: Wukong (August 20)
Tactical Breach Wizards (August 22)
Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (August 29)
Squirrel with a Gun (August 29)
Star Wars Outlaws (August 30)
Edge of Sanity (September13)
The Plucky Squire (September 17)
UFO 50 (September 18)
Enotria: The Last Song (September 19)
Home Safety Online (September 20)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (September 26)
Mouthwashing (September 26)
Zoochosis (September 30)
Silent Hill 2 (October 8)
Neva (October 15)
Clock Tower Rewind (October 29)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (October 31)
Slitterhead (November 8)
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake (November 14)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (November 20)
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (December 9)
MiSide (December 11)
So as you can tell from this last section, I haven't played nearly enough games released in 2024 to have any kind of informed say as to what "The Best Game of 2024" should be. Of all of the games that I played that were released in 2024, the only one I paid for was Hatch Tales which was from a 2018 Kickstarter, while all of the rest were either free-to-play, demos, or I received through Keymailer. I'm actually planning on an article after the first of the year going into several of the games that I've helped fund through various online fundraising platforms and for one reason or another, have not played (yet).
So let's briefly take a look at my Nintendo 2024 Year in Review and Steam 2024 Replay.
On the Nintendo Switch, I think the funniest thing is how much The Squire played New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe using my account, so therefore, I ended up clocking upwards of 45 hours in that game. Or did I?
I would say that "I think" that this chart feels accurate, except that since this is how Nintendo categorizes games, I guess it is accurate. All of the top three games have action elements as well as Role playing and adventure, although NSMBUD is probably considered just straight action since I don't see "Platformer" as a genre.
As for Steam, the genres are a little more varied and less traditional:
I feel like Rhythm is solely from the BIT.TRIP series that The Squire likes to play and have me play, which I'm perfectly fine with; unless he wants me to play as Invisible CommanderVideo, which he does often. The only game I can think of as Tower Defense is Plants vs. Zombies which I didn't think we played that much, but that's obviously not true. I'm sure I can track down the Metroidvania games, and I'm positive that the rest of the genres here are from a combination of free games I acquired through Keymailer this year and a bunch of demos that I played too.
The only other metric that surprised me a little was how much I actually played on my laptop, but then I remembered that most of the Steam games I play with The Squire are all played on my laptop and I usually get in an hour or so of gaming on the Steam Deck. Even though it accounts for 68%, I'm still thankful to the Steam Deck for getting me not only back into my Steam queue, but also making games through other clients accessible since my laptop isn't the powerhouse it never was.
Now, if we were to do the same thing for TV/Streaming shows, movies, and games, we'd probably be here for another couple of minutes, but let's be quick about it. I read through mostly more Forgotten Realms books ending with Ed Greenwood's Crown of Fire, the second book in the Shandril's Saga trilogy. I did read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo and really enjoyed that take on a new fantasy setting that wasn't strictly Western European based. In TV land, Conklederp and I really enjoyed The Acolyte, the ill-fated Star Wars series, and were both saddened by its cancellation. We started and are still planning on finishing the second season of The Rings of Power, but finding time to sit down and watch an hour of TV after The Squire goes to bed has been really difficult for the last six months. This is also why we have yet to start watching Skeleton Crew. Movie-wise, Conklederp and I did see Longlegs back in August (I think), and then I went out to see Alien: Romulus with Himo. I think that's it. I would have wanted to see a couple of other movies, but again, finding an available sitter during a specific weekend is not always the easiest. And the new Nosferatu was just released, so maybe we'll be able to sneak away for the requisite 3.5 hours to drive, see the movie, grab a post-movie beer, and drive home? I might also end up seeing the new Superman without Conklederp as I'm not sure if that's her cup of tea.
So yeah, that was 2024. I don't know if we'll be picking up the Switch 2 if it's announced/released in 2025. Maybe that could be a Christmas present? This means any 2025 games will end up being played on the Steam Deck, although there's always the high possibility that there'll still be plenty of indie games released on the Switch as well. It's also probably getting close to the time to replace my laptop, but before we do that, we'll likely be replacing Conklederp's 2014 (or is it 2012?) MacBook first. I guess it's just about that time to consult my hastily scotch-taped crystal ball to find out what's in store, assuming that it's not just showing an empty void after the third week of January.
Something that's interesting while researching this song, is that apart from the official soundtrack, the rest of the Internet has this song labeled as "Our Island." I don't know if that's the name of the audio file or if someone came up with the title before the official soundtrack came out, but that's what crops up for everyone's video on YouTube except the Inon Zur YouTube page. I get it though. This is one of the main themes that plays while you're running around Far Harbor, or at least if you're not fast traveling at every chance you get because it's not like you're going to find something new every time you head out to either a new quest marker or a destination on your map that someone else marked, or just a blank part of the map that is likely to have something there because why would a map this large have anything blank on it?
I really love the cello (I think it's a cello, I can't really tell) that wails at the beginning of the song, and only after the one-minute mark, does it actually pick up any semblance of a melody. Which is then picked up by that haunting flute-like instrument around 1:40 until it dies a quiet death shortly thereafter.
My guess is that the title could be a reference to the DiMA questline as you recover his memories from The Nucleus and then proceed to different areas of the island where those lost memories lead you to either side with the various factions that inhabit the island. It's a very suiting theme that I enjoy listening to as I once again find myself over-encumbered trying to make my way up a hillside while avoiding another giant hermit crab or army of glowing gulpers.
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