• Price: $17.99 USD (currently on sale for $14.39 until April 5th)
• Developer: Happy Broccoli Games
• Publisher: Fellow Traveller
• Release Date: March 22, 2022

A review code was kindly provided by Fellow Traveller on behalf of Happy Broccoli Games. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Check out today’s AMA held by Happy Broccoli Games on r/NintendoSwitch

Kraken Academy!! has been a game I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced. I played the short but sweet demo on Switch in January, which only increased my excitement for the game.

Your character is a new student at Kraken Academy. He’s attending the school with his confrontational older sister. The academy doesn’t exactly make the best first impression, with a rundown environment and a fight breaking out at the entrance before you even get to class! 😮

The students are divided into four different clubs, which are then secured behind fences that require an ID to get through. You’re initially in the Music Club, which requires a Music Club Card to enter. (For some reason, your older sister belongs to the Drama Club, which is more affluent and has a nicer environment.)

In the music club, you’ll meet the adorable Broccoli Girl, pretty boy/lead singer Vladimir, Simona the giraffe hoodie-wearing girl, and Kostadin the conspiracy theorist. While the game’s dialogue is not fully voiced, there are short voiced reactions when you speak with someone. (I was especially excited to see that Sean Chiplock, who voiced Rean Schwarzer in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, voices several characters. Brian David Gilbert, whose videos I’ve enjoyed on Polygon, also voices some of the characters in Kraken Academy!!)

I enjoyed getting to know the characters, but I will say that it might have been nice to have different dialogue in different time loops as you get to know them. They may not remember your conversations in previous loops, but it would have been cool to mention things you learned from/about them in prior loops in order to trigger new dialogue in subsequent loops.

My favorite characters had to be the adorable artist dog named Patitsa, Broccoli Girl, Vladimir, and probably the Kraken.

Besides having dirty and broken school grounds, the teachers are hardly Teacher of the Year candidates either. One is a former opera singer with questionable teaching methods, and Ms. Markova tends to nap during instructional time, allowing her students to run wild.

Because I think I’m funny, I named my character Takoyaki. 🐙 The game is called Kraken Academy!! for a reason – there is indeed a kraken at the school, and you must help them prevent the destruction of the school by awakening the school’s four dormant spirits. These spirits correspond to the school’s four clubs. The Kraken gives you an amulet that allows you to time travel should you mess things up; once you reach a certain time on day 3, the school’s destruction will begin.

You conveniently keep all of your items when you time travel, but nobody else will remember the events of the time loops besides the Kraken and school spirits. Time passes fairly quickly, somewhat similar to the time systems in Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons/Stardew Valley. You can use the phone booth to call your mom in order to choose to make some time pass, whether it’s until morning or evening or even the next day entirely. Alternatively, you can choose to make time pass by sleeping in your dorm! Dialogue and character locations will change at different times of day.

You can spend time with the NPCs and earn their Friendship Tokens. This is done by completing side quests on their behalf. Most quests were fairly straightforward, although the Art Club mission had some aspects that were not as obvious in terms of what you’re supposed to do. I particularly enjoyed the side quest where you make a birthday cake in an “alternative” cooking vessel, as well as the events of the Art Club Exhibition.

When you attend class, you’ll get to know the others a bit more, and if you are asked a question or need to do something (push-ups, acting out a scene, etc.), it triggers mini games of sorts. The mini games allow you to choose the difficulty level to account for your ability (or lack thereof) to hit the right buttons at the right time. There are achievements in the game for doing well on mini games, as well as for befriending people and other tasks.

Something I really liked was that you can decorate your dorm room. Additional furniture can be acquired by finding the items around school, someone giving it to you, or by purchasing items from the market. In order to afford these items, you must destroy lockers and dumpsters to acquire bottles, which can then be exchanged for the game’s currency.

Most of your funds will be used on the furniture from the market, while some of your money will go towards buying illicit IDs to get into the other clubs. It could take a while to grind for funds, as the lockers and dumpsters don’t reset until time has been reset as well. You can also earn some bottles to convert by performing tasks during class. Eventually, you can upgrade the bottle-currency machines to improve their “exchange rates.” (Incidentally, the currency exchange machines are right next to machines that allow you to save your game.)

You will also acquire different costumes to use to gain access to different areas. I particularly enjoyed the penguin costume. I will say that as someone who really enjoys customization, I kind of wish there were more options for furniture and costumes. However, given that I barely spent time in the dorm room, I can understand why there weren’t a ton of furniture options.

Something I found kind of neat was the inclusion of Easter eggs in the background. At first glance, the messages looked like Russian to me. Google Translate recognized it as Bulgarian…? (Apparently, Cyrillic script originated from Bulgaria in the first place.) Google Translate recognized one word, счупен, as “broken”; the word was written on bathroom stalls that did appear to be out of order. There was one area that seemed to give a hint to the plot in Bulgarian as well.

I have to say that I was not expecting where the plot went, which I really appreciated. There are two “bosses” in the end, but it’s not incredibly combat heavy. I had wanted Broccoli Girl’s story explained more (even after unlocking her room), as well as Alex, and I felt that the person involved with the final spirit did not get their comeuppance as they should have. But I loved the quirky absurdity of alligators on campus, having a “Broccoli Girl,” the questionable practice of abandoning students in the woods, and more. I also loved what seemed like Phoenix Wright and Shrek references in the game. It’s bizarre but it works!

Switch it ON or Switch it OFF? Kraken Academy!! is an odd yet endearing game focused on socializing with the people there in order to save the school. I loved the variety of characters and the references scattered throughout the game, and the time travel elements really made it interesting. I wish that I got to spend more time at Kraken Academy because I liked a lot about it, and I wanted to see more varied dialogue across time loops, and a more detailed ending. Overall though, it’s a creative and fun experience. 🐙 8.0/10