to a T Review: Katamari Creator’s Whimsical New Adventure Rolls In!

Quite famously, your main character being stuck in a T pose is a bad omen in video games, touting claims of glitches and bugs, but "to a T" has decided to throw those norms straight into the bin and create a game so full of whimsy that every song, minigame, and conversation will have you sitting there with a grin on your face. But does the game strike the correct poses, or does it leave you wanting more? 

"To a T" has you playing as a freshly 13-year-old in a relatively normal town (if we pretend all towns have a giraffe running the local cafes), and this 13-year-old just so happens to have arms that are stuck outright in a T pose. You’ll follow ‘teen’, a name you can change by the way, as they try to go through their normal life with this unusual condition, going to school, eating, brushing their teeth, and all the rest of life’s normal activities. 

The game plays out like a TV show, with every ‘episode’ starting upon the finding of a numbered balloon and punctuated by the game's theme song and secondary interval song about the aforementioned giraffe. Subsequently, the gameplay is very linear; you must wake up, choose an outfit from your wardrobe (fun) which your dog helps you put on, wash your face, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, and then head off to school (though I will say, all but getting dressed can be skipped after the first day, so you don’t have to spend precious time repeating tasks). Thanks to the linearity of the game, progression is incredibly simple; there is no leveling up or skill trees to consider. You simply do as the game tells you each day and experience the events of these episodes in exactly the order they wish you to.

Story-wise, "to a T" is more than a little wacky. Sometimes life is strange, and you perhaps foresee an incoming disaster right at the top of the game, and sometimes, just sometimes, said disaster might come true after a series of strange happenings… Now, I am not saying that is the case in this game, but we do kick things off running away from a massive tornado, so go figure. As each episode progresses, things do start to go a little wrong in our little town, i.e., wind turbines almost crushing the school and so on. And as these things start to happen, our character discovers that due to their unique frame, they are able to fly through the air by spinning as fast as they can, and subsequently must become an unlikely hero. The story also focuses on our protagonist's struggles to fit in, in a world not designed for them, from difficulties participating in lessons to bullying from fellow teens, but as the song suggests, our protagonist is ‘the perfect shape’ for what the town needs. 

The cast of characters in the game is in their own ways as quirky as our protagonist, from our secret-hiding mum, our dark magic-obsessed bully, our chronically single science teacher to our incredibly chill about the fact we can fly PE teacher. Throughout the story, you are given plenty of opportunities to explore the town, participate in Giraffe’s food-based minigames, and collect the many coins dotted about the map which can be used to buy new clothes, shoes, and more goes at those minigames I just mentioned. Taking time to do these outside of the narrative doesn’t necessarily help you progress in any way, it’s just things to make your experience even more fun and a little silly.

There are 2 songs in the game that play during each main story segment, one at the top of each episode and one partway through as an almost interval before we continue about our day. Both are full 2-minute-long songs and don’t change as the story progresses, so despite how jaunty and fun they are to listen to, you may find yourself skipping them in favor of getting back to the main game. 

Outside of those songs, the town’s different areas each have their own tunes (which your character will occasionally whistle to) and are distinctly different in vibe and energy from one another, making running, or unicycling, through the town still a jolly experience every time you’re allowed to do so. The action in the story is also uplifted by the game's sound design, and the quirkiness is pushed even further by the almost Simlish-style language all of our characters speak.

The game was designed by Keita Takahashi, the mind behind the brilliant Katamari Damacy, and Katamari’s energy is oozing out of every pore in the game, from its quirky cast of characters to its colorful art style and, of course, the jaunty tunes that pull it all together. One thing that is worth mentioning is that, despite its art style, the game may not be suitable for most children, not in subject matter but in the difficulty of many of the minigames. Now, you do not need to succeed in any of them to progress the story, so that is great, but I worry about whether some children may find it difficult to even understand what they are supposed to do in the first place. Hell, even I failed the vast majority of them, and I have a fully developed frontal lobe. That being said, the bulk of the gameplay is as simple as getting from point A to point B and completing minigames or exploring locations.

The game is best played with a controller and will, hopefully, be Steam Deck compatible in the very near future. Overall, the game plays very well, and the only bug I encountered was during one of Giraffe’s minigames where some of the text was clearly not correct, but these are minimal issues that I am sure will be fixed on launch. The game gives you a plethora of visual filters you can apply should you fancy pixelating everything, playing with the disco lights on, or throwing it back to your youth and pretending to play your game on a CRT TV. I do have to say I was disappointed at the amount of accessibility options; aside from making the spinning mechanic a simple button press, there is no option for those of us who may need additional support to game nor any way to change the default difficulty level.

I don’t know if it’ll reach the cosmical heights of Katamari Damacy, but I do believe To a T will find a very positive reception from its players with how unique its premise and execution are. If you love whimsy like I do, then I am sure you, like me, will enjoy your time with To a T. It's goofy, it’s quirky, it’s amazing how inaccessible this school is for their student with T arms, and it has an awful lot of charm. If you are searching for a colorful, light, easy-on-the-brain game to sink a good few hours in, then To a T should definitely be on your list. Its charming narrative and incorporation of a very cute little dog, who I named Nigel, will definitely have you smiling for its entire runtime.

GREAT