Developer pedigree alone can make me interested in a mobile game and that was the case with Egglia when it came out on mobile platforms in 2017. That premium-priced game came from the founders of Brownie Brown (now owned by Nintendo and called 1UP Studio), a company that worked on Mother 3 and Magical Starsign with Nintendo and also has connections to Square Enix’s Mana series. My memory of Egglia at the time was that it was a non-free-to-play mobile game that still has mobile tropes such as countdowns and difficulty walls. I was optimistic that the console release, aptly named Egglia Rebirth, might smooth over those issues for a new release, but even as a premium game on Nintendo Switch, Egglia Rebirth still has a flow reminiscent of a free-to-play mobile game and it stunts what is otherwise a cute, curious, and gorgeous game.

The details and setup of the world are endearing, as you play as a Redcap, a demon that has the ability to bring back the shattered world by cracking open eggs. Thanks to the cheerier cast around you, the demonic playable character is focused on doing good, and that kicks off the primary loop of the game as you complete quests to help townsfolk and would-be townsfolk out, occasionally earning eggs that can be used to unlock new levels. It’s extremely reminiscent of Legend of Mana and Dragon Quest VII, but the Egglia implementation of this build-your-own-world system is less open-ended and enthralling.

Part of that comes from how you engage with each new level. There’s nothing really in terms of exploration as each area is split into different levels on a grid. Action plays out in a turn-based fashion as you roll a six-sided die to move around the map. Your goal is generally to just make it through the area, but you can also collect resources and fight enemies. The combat is overly simplistic but gets punishing quickly, especially if you try to do anything ahead of the story progression. That’s where some of the mobile issues crop up as every area has multiple difficulty levels that unlock after you beat the area. The problem is that they scale up so high in a way that almost seems like it’s a free-to-play mobile game that is demanding you pay for boosts or weapons. But oddly Egglia as a mobile game was never that and Egglia Rebirth still retains a lot of the issues the premium mobile release had in this regard.

Those issues even extend to the overall progression, where you collect various items and resources that can be planted and seeded but all require in-game countdown timers - another free-to-play mobile trope. Some resources are even tied to a drop rate that can sometimes be unseemingly low (though there are ways to improve this drop rate in game). It’s baffling because the foundation of Egglia Rebirth is strong. The music, some of which features the work of Yoko Shimomura, is great. The visuals, while maybe a little rough around the edges technically, are artistically appealing. Even the localization is stellar, featuring a lot of great characterization and dialogue for a wide cast of characters. This feels like it should be a novel take on a classic JRPG formula from a group that was making them for Squaresoft back in the ‘90s. Instead it feels like a middling attempt at translating a mobile game to Switch because the majority of the gameplay feels like a stale holdover from mediocre free-to-play RPGs.

Egglia Rebirth has everything you’d want to see in a JRPG on Switch. It has the developer pedigree of the Brownie Brown founders, the music of Yoko Shimomura, visually pleasing 2D visuals, and a superb localization. It’s a shame that the gameplay itself is somewhere between overly simplified and frustrating, largely thanks to the mobile influences that still seep into this Switch release. If you have a high tolerance for mobile fluff, then Egglia Rebirth might still be worth a look, but be prepared for countdown timers and weirdly high difficulty spikes to dirty your pleasant nostalgic jaunt.