The say comparison is the thief of joy and boy, is it ever.
Coming off such a high that was Clair Obscur I knew that whatever I played next was probably going to suffer. I was also so emotionally exhausted from it that I didn’t think I was yet up to the task of trying my hand at the latest DOOM, something which I’ve repeatedly said I can only play in short bursts just because of how intense it is. So I had to find a suitable victim, err candidate, for my next game to review before I started back on the mainstream hits that were piling up. Extra Coin gets that unfortunate honor and, whilst I will admit that my longing for more Clair Obscur played a part, it’s a game that unfortunately just didn’t hit the mark for me.
The future of the world is bleak. Global warming has made living hard for all and with resources scarce civil wars have erupted everywhere, threatening the lives of ordinary citizens. There’s hope though, hope that through the use of technology that humanity can make its way through this crisis. The core of this hope comes from The Arcade, a seamless virtual world that offers its participants the chance to have the lives of their dreams whilst also relieving the world of their burdens. Mika’s parents believed this vision too and, some years ago, became one of the many cloud jumpers who have given up their corporeal existence for that of the virtual world. Mika now lives with her grandpa who, on their deathbed, makes a confession that will change Mika’s life forever.
Extra Coin is a rather interesting blend of 3D assets that are masquerading as pixel art. This rouse would’ve gone unnoticed if not for a number of elements whose texturing is always a bit different to the rest of the environment around it. Still I can get the vibe that the developer was going for here, an almost retro-future interpretation of what virtual worlds could have looked like. It also gave them broad latitude to incorporate a slew of pop culture references throughout the game, a subtle nod to the Ready Player One influences that the game readily draws on. The visuals were at their best during the cutscenes which had the unfortunate effect of making the rest of the game seem a little underdone by comparison.
Extra Coin’s core loop is, accurately, a loop of 2 kinds of events: activities and battles. On one loop you’re supposed to go out into the world and do some kind of solo based activity which comes with its own mini-game. The battle days see you pitted against AI opponents in a tennis/PONG hybrid style game where you’ll need to beat them in 4 rounds in order to win. You can progress your character by using the winnings from these battle days on items to improve your character or, strangely, buy a bunch of cosmetics that you can’t actually wear. Base stat upgrades seem to be tied to the game’s core story progression so should you see yourself struggling with opponents that’s probably a good hint to start continuing the story in earnest again.
I will admit that my main gripe with Extra Coin was the combat days as I simply did not find the core game mechanic fun. I’d worked out some decent strategies early on in order to get through them relatively easily but as opponents stats started to dwarf mine and their ultimates became increasingly unfair my interest started to wane. This got even worse with the boss fights which are just extended sessions of the same core mechanic which, ultimately, is what caused me to put the game down for good. Reading other reviews shows I’m in something of a minority of this so let’s put that down to me going in mostly blind to this as, knowing that being the core mechanic, I probably would’ve given Extra Coin a miss.
Now I’ll lay some of the blame on me here for not understanding the game’s premise about the loops and, more accurately, breaking them as I felt like the story was moving at a glacial pace. Turns out that I was reading the indicators for main quest story things wrong, not noticing that they could be bright or dark, indicating that you could or could not progress them on that day. This led to a couple annoying interactions where I thought I was going to be able to move the story forward and couldn’t, making me think I needed to do more loops in order to unlock it. That was wrong of course, but it’s worth mentioning to give you a sense of where my head was at with everything before I say this.
The story was very, very middle of the road.
The premise is somewhat interesting but there just wasn’t enough done to make me care about the characters before they launched off into the main narrative arc. The game does its best to try and fill this in as you progress through the main story missions, but those flashback vignettes come too late in the piece, in my opinion, to help drive the story along in any meaningful sense. The game also has plenty of opportunity to build out that world and its characters through the constant downtime/exploration elements it’s incorporated into it but most of that is spent on memes and pop culture references. Quite possibly I’m just not the audience the developer was targeting with this.
Extra Coin was a miss for me, a game that on the surface looked interesting but lacked any of the substance I usually look for to keep me engaged past a few hours. The 3D pixel art is done well and the references to other literature and pop culture elements in this space is a nice touch. However I simply did not enjoy the main combat mechanics nor the story, leaving me with precious little to get myself motivated for. This, perhaps, is a good example of some of the pitfalls of my low-information diet for the games I play. Sometimes you end up playing things that are really just not for you.
Rating: 6.5/10
Extra Coin is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch right now for $7.50. Total playtime was 2.7 hours with 27% of the achievements unlocked.
