The BoxBoy series is no stranger to giving its characters additional looks. Some installments, like the original BoxBoy, has outfits that can give additional abilities. (For example, making Qbby a wizard increases his box limit by one.) Bye-Bye! BoxBoy! had Kirby costumes that changed the look of both him and his boxes. While BoxBoy + BoxGirl! doesn’t tie special abilities to clothing items, it does go a step further with customization options. This time, it is up to the player to decide how each part of a character looks.
In BoxBoy + BoxGirl!, you receive currency for completing levels by using under certain amounts of boxes and collecting the crowns within each area. If you head to the in-game shop after accruing at least 30 target medals, you can drop them into a gacha machine for costume parts. It is completely random, but you are guaranteed one part you don’t already have. It is automatically deposited into your wardrobe.
Once you head to the closet, every playable can be dressed up. There are no limitations. During A Tale for One or A Tale for Two, you can put Head, Eye, Mouth, and Body parts on Qbby or Qucy. In A Tall Tale, Qudy can be dressed up. Everyone can wear everything. There will just be some quirks for certain characters. For example, Qucy always has her hairbow present. Also, the positioning of certain items will look different on Qudy, due to his elongated body.
While not having those special abilities may disappoint, the opportunity to mix and match here is quite a delight. All parts can work together, though you are limited to one head, one eye, one mouth, and one body accessory at a time. You don’t have to worry about one character locking out an item. It is freeing to get to have anything go. Plus, some accessories do still have animations that chance the look of characters. If someone is wearing the white hair, it will frizz out in an Albert Einstein-inspired look whenever you generate boxes. If someone has the bubblegum equipped and dies, the bubble will pop and leave a mess on their face.
This new system also means we get impromptu titles. There are certain parts that, when paired together, bestow a certain title in BoxBoy + BoxGirl!. For example, there are parts you can put together to create a likeness of the UFO from HAL Laboratory’s Part-Time UFO. Combining a cozy hat with a matching scarf will make the box into a Winter Walker. Do you have a Chef’s Hat and Kerchief? Well, then you have a chef! The Wizard costume mentioned earlier is still present here, but you need to combine the white hair and matching mustache to “get” it. There’s an opportunity to experiment and be rewarded with goofy monikers. For example, since the oddball eye and mouth combination could be worn at the same time as the hat and body convict outfit, you could make one of the characters into an Oddball Convict.
Playing around with BoxBoy + BoxGirl!‘s looks is incredibly entertaining. It doesn’t have a character creator as engaging as the ones we would see in games like Dragon’s Dogma, God Eater 3, or SoulCalibur VI, but we still have something novel to play around with. Especially as you see how items interact with one another or test out a costume and see what sorts of unique animations it might have when used in a level. It is charming, a word which is frankly good at describing BoxBoy + BoxGirl! as a whole.
BoxBoy + BoxGirl! is available for the Nintendo Switch.
Published: May 7, 2019 12:00 pm