Ever since the halcyon days of Airport Mania: First Flight back in 2008 I’ve been bitten by the time management genre. With the success of games such as All My Gods, Incredible Zoo and Farm to Fork and it seems that Nintendo’s magic box of tricks has finally embraced the genre with the unveiling of Country Tales.
Developed by Cateia Games (those of Tales From The Dragon Mountain and Myths of Orion fame) Country Tales is the story of Ted, a good natured protagonist who is fed up living in the countryside. Ted initially tries his hand at life in the big city but eventually decides to settle in a small town called Sunset Hills. There, as fate would have it, he falls for the beautiful Catherine who also happens to be the fiancé of the town mayor. Keen to stay on the mayor’s good side, Ted devotes himself to completing any assigned task and winning brownie points as well as rewards for you (the player).
Country Tales is essentially a time and resource management game which has you completing a number of tasks as you make your way through some 40 levels. The first couple of levels are strictly hand holding challenges that will introduce you to the in-game mechanics. Initially you’re building farms, shacks, sawmills, collecting taxes and transporting food from the farms. However, as the game progresses the challenges become much tougher and will really challenge your abilities to multi-task while keeping focused on the time and your mission goals. Country Tales offers you three difficulty levels to choose from and these range from casual to normal (which has a time limit and rewards you with medals) and then there’s the extreme mode that has an even shorter time limit but rewards you with diamonds should you manage to achieve your goals.
You can of course play Country Tales with your Joy Con’s, but this was a non-starter for me. Many of the options require you to double tap to select and confirm your selection. Doing this with the controller was far too tricky and the game became a much smoother experience when used with the touch screen.
Graphically, Country Tales has a bright and crisp feel to it. The characters are well drawn and look as though they would feel at home in an animated cartoon movie. Sunset Hills is highly reminiscent of the design style in the Goscinny and Uderzo Asterix series. Everything is boldly outlined, very colourful and bright. A huge bonus if you happen to be playing this outside in sunlight.
Although Country Tales starts off easy enough, later levels are incredibly challenging and you will find yourself constantly running out of time before you complete your mission goals. If you’re not sure what you need to do, Country Tales allows you to click a screen that will detail what needs to be built and how many of them are left to construct. Excellent. Although lacking in the complexity of previous resource management titles, Country Tales offers some 30 hours of game play which can easily be tripled if you’re a completionist who simply has to achieve every single reward. This could also be said if you’re foolish or brave enough to play Country Tales on the extreme setting. For the rest of us Country Tales is a hugely challenging and engrossing game that can easily eat up hours of your day without you noticing. For anyone who enjoys a good time management game – or in fact for newbies to the genre – Country Tales is a great addition to your library. Go buy.
