Regardless, here I am startin' it up. Better late than never!
Of Mice and Sand (3DS)
This is a game where you control a big tank full of anthropomorphic mice as they use it to roll around the desert to collect treasure and fight monsters. It sounded really cool, it got good reviews, and it was on the top of the 3DS sales on the eShop in Japan for quite a while when I looked last year. It just got announced that it's coming to PC and PS4 later this year, so I figured I'd throw down the 7.50 and get it on the Japanese eShop to see what all the fuss was about. In retrospect, I really should've watched some videos on it
This game is basically Fallout Shelter but with a hard victory condition (I assume). You can use the resources at hand to build stations on your tank. You can put build queues on each station to have your little mice build things in succession. You use the Bridge station to tell you tank to go from point to point on the map, and you run over materials on the way. You use the materials to build parts that you can use to upgrade your work stations, build more stations, and fulfill quests at the outposts you go between for cash, fuel, and items. You eventually get enough cash to buy a new tank you come across or buy information of a new outpost to go to.
This is the game, and it all comes down to a colossal exercise in active waiting. Waiting to go between areas, waiting for stuff to craft, waiting to complete quests by collecting enough materials and crafting enough things. It even makes you wait MORE because all of your crafting stations (and their upgrades) get destroyed when you get a new tank, so now you gotta build it ALL again. It all needs to be done in real time as you actively play (no Animal Crossing-style leaving it to grow itself), and it just comes down to tedium more than anything else because the game just isn't that interesting to play in the first place. Even the monster fights are just letting the mice run to their combat stations and letting the battle happen automatically, since you control neither them nor the tank directly. The lore is kinda interesting, something like the mice fled to this planet from beyond the stars, but it really can't hold up the uninteresting gameplay.
I'm sure there are people who would enjoy something like this one their 3DS or Switch, but there are so many free games on mobile that have this, I just really do not see the appeal of this $8 game ($10 on Switch) for your 3DS. If I have my 3DS or Switch, I'd rather be using it for more engaged playing experiences than just time-wasting I can do on some phone game (or even browsing Twitter). I cannot see people flocking to play this on their PS4's or Steam when it comes out soon. It's not an especially bad game, but I find it a very hard one to recommend.
