The first English release of a niche retro cozy game, how odd!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/73591/milanos-odd-job-collection-switch-review
As someone that loves game history, there’s nothing quite better than the weird forgotten games of yesteryear getting a second life on modern consoles. Even better are games that never saw an English release finally getting one. So when I saw that Milano’s Odd Job Collection, a niche, late ‘90s PS1 game originally only released in Japan was getting a new version for Switch, I was extremely excited to try this one out.
Milano’s Odd Job Collection starts off with a series of circumstances leaving Milano, an 11-year-old girl, alone housesitting for a 40-day summer vacation. Because of this, she decides to do a bunch of part-time jobs around the town while living on her own, which leads to the rest of this slow-life game.
In a lot of ways, Odd Job Collection feels like some of the raising sims I’ve played in the past (like the Princess Maker series) but stripped down to make it a more comfortable, cozy time. A big part is increasing Milano’s key stats (Mood, Energy, and Skill) and taking care of chores around the house in the evening, but nothing is mandatory. Cleaning the house might increase Milano’s mood (something I personally can’t relate to), but it’s not like the house gets dirty if you DON’T do that. While there is a time limit and stats do matter to the rest of the gameplay, there’s never a feeling like you can do anything wrong, which makes for a relaxing time.
The main gameplay is the odd jobs themselves, consisting of nine part-time jobs that Milano can take work around the town in the form of minigames. All of these are pretty standard types of jobs (working in fast food, washing dishes), but each minigame feels different to play and they all have a pleasantly weird feel to them. For example, one of the jobs Milano can do is go to the local farm and milk cows, but all the cows are flying so you have to catch them and pull them down to the ground to milk them (while avoiding nearby obstacles). One odd job is working as a nurse at a hospital curing viruses (really stretching what kind of job an 11-year-old would be allowed to do), which takes place in a giant cartoony mouth with button pressing puzzles. Every minigame is distinct, and while you might prefer some over others, you can choose between multiple minigames each day and there’s no penalty for just choosing the ones you might like to do best.
The money you earn by successfully completing a job minigame can be used in the catalogue to buy furniture, which leads to a charming home decoration element. Some items can be used to unlock additional actions with Milano at home as well; buying potted plants for the patio allows her to water them and purchasing a recorder allows her to play it. These also might improve stats if they add a new action, but most of it is just making a space that suits you best. This is all supported by some very charming pixel graphics and animations, which are a joy to look at. This is a beautiful game, so getting to make the overly cutesy frilly pink house of my dreams was fun, even if it didn’t impact the rest of the gameplay. I absolutely love the art design and visuals of Milano's Odd Job Collection.
One thing to note is that, as can be expected in some retro games, not everything gets explained to you, which can be either frustrating or fun depending on your tastes. For example, it took me a while to understand the mechanic to upgrade your Skill level, which you need if you want to increase difficulty on the minigames. The base level of difficulty is easy, which also pays the least out of any difficulty, so this was frustrating until I figured it out. That said, full runs of the game are pretty quick with any playthrough taking just a couple of hours, so it’s possible to use the first time you play as being about figuring out mechanics and the second time about achieving your best ranking. You get a score at the end of each playthrough and the C I got on my first time playing was enough of a motivator to get me to immediately start up a new playthrough with the knowledge I had and practice I had already done with the minigames.
There are a few quality of life improvements for this version, including in-game achievements, ability to make save states, a rewind feature, all in addition to the new localization and port, but those are small things that just allow this game to shine. Milano's Odd Job Collection wasn’t localized in the past due to the concept of a cozy game like this being relatively niche in the West, and I feel like this will still be niche to a lot of people, but if you want to try an interesting blast from the past then I’d suggest picking up Milano’s Odd Job Collection. It’s not for everyone and the theming of being a child playing house would have been maybe more appealing to me when I was a child, but I really liked playing an older game with this much charm. I hope more games like this get a shot on modern consoles. There’s a world of interesting niche games out there to discover, and I’m glad I finally discovered Milano’s Odd Job Collection.
Topic: Milano's Odd Job Collection (Switch) Review (Read 19 times)
