Sometimes a game premise seems really good! Alchemic Cutie is one I’ve kept an eye on over the years. However, platforms and work obligations often meant I never had a chance to check it out. Once Alchemic Cutie headed to the Switch, I had an opportunity, but it feels like recurring issues still aren’t exactly ironed out.
In Alchemic Cutie, players follow Yvette. Immediately after becoming an alchemist, she gets to work assisting at her family’s Jelly (slime) farm on Wimba Island. Your goal from here is to take on quests that assist your neighbors, fulfill jelly bean (Jelly poop) orders for the farm, collect and breed Jellies to get certain types, and unlike new areas of the island. You can take part in minigames with slimes, or use the alchemic flute to transform items you find.
It’s a very relaxed experience! Like simulations such as Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, there is a day-night structure and seasons change as time goes by. The pacing isn’t too hectic, with requests being fairly easy to fulfill. Most days involve tending to the Jellies you have, hunting for the ones you don’t and need to fulfill orders, and potentially take advantage of slimes to reach new areas. It’s continually building upon itself. However, that gameplay progression does hint at its eventual tedious nature, this is a giant fetch quest of a game.
The thing about Alchemic Cutie is both that it doesn’t exactly run well on the Switch. And even when it does, the game still feels like it is an “early access” build. Sometimes both the audio and general gameplay can just… stutter. The framerate can abruptly dip, and in some cases it happened even when there weren’t a lot of slimes or NPCs around to cause it. Worse was when it outright froze up on me, because then I’d actually need to go to the Home menu, close, and restart to get back to business. However, there is an autosave function, so at least I could resort to that.
But the real trouble is that Alchemic Cutie can seem a bit pointless. It’s like I was working a job, rather than escaping to a fun, colorful rendition of a “job” to get away from the actual daily grind. I mean, there is a “goal.” You get missions. You need to collect jellies, feed them to get their beans (poop) to fulfill requests from a board. This involves getting wild jellies, breeding them, and hopefully getting the products you need. Except the amount of effort and time that goes into it isn’t satisfying. Especially since the NPCs you’re interacting with fall flat beyond initial interactions. In games like Stardew Valley or Slime Rancher, I feel motivated to explore the world because the rewards are good, the characters are fun, and there’s a clear sense of progression and growth. There isn’t that same pay-off here.
Image via Vakio and Viridian Software
A part of that stems from the lack of information. There’s a lot going on. Different items have an effect on a jelly when it eats it. You need to be careful, because it’s a few seconds difference between petting jellies and releasing them. If you decide to venture too far from home (and food sources) for jellies, then they will be starving while you’re off checking new areas. Using your flute and powers of alchemy can trigger not only one, but multiple transformations for items. You should always have a jelly with you, and be taking them to talk to NPCs for training. It’s just a lot to take in, so much so that it’s overwhelming to deal with traits and other elements while also trying to find specific products. So even though this is all just a series of fetch quests, making sure you have what you need to keep doing them might get to be a lot.
Some of Alchemic Cutie’s Switch issues are ones that might be remedied by a series of patches. In which case, it’d be a thing to try if you like titles that see you collecting characters, breeding them, and dutifully turning in requested items regularly. The lack of information is a little harder to overcome, however. So is the general nature of this being a series of fetch quests one-after-another. But it is pleasant enough, and with some updates could prove worth someone’s time.
Alchemic Cutie is available for the Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.
