Game: Flying Neko Delivery
Genre: Cozy, Flight, Simulation
System: Steam (Windows, macOS, Linux), also available for Nintendo Switch)
Developer|Publisher: Fractal Phase
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $19.99 | UK £TBC | EU € TBC
Release Date: October 20th, 2022
Review code provided with many thanks to Fractal Phase.
Flying Neko Delivery is a delivery sim from the developers’ Fractal Phase. This game is cute, colorful, and features an adorable little cat named Onigiri as the main character. Let’s dive in.
It’s So Cute!
The first thing most will notice about Flying Neko Delivery is how adorable it is. The story is a flight simulation game where players control a little witch-cat on a broom, flying across the world to deliver packages to new friends. And our main character, Onigiri (which is the Japanese word for rice ball), is the cutest little cat ever to drive a broom.
Our little Onigiri has just graduated and is ready to start their nine lives as a delivery driver. We are tasked with picking up packages and delivering them to NPCs and mailboxes, some of them across oceans and dimensions.
How to Play Flying Neko Delivery
In order to play, we have the option of using a mouse and keyboard or the controller. This game will most likely be okay for the Steam Deck and will be released for the Switch, and the controller is the way to go with this title.
The mouse and keyboard controls for this game are terrible and not precise enough for play. I would recommend busting out whatever controllers you have rather than fumbling through the already challenging controls with the keyboard. Not to mention, there were a few places I got stuck while playing with the mouse and keyboard; it seems like it wasn’t tested with those in mind at all. There are some bugs that kept me from progressing that forced me to dust off the old PS4 controller and plug it in.
Once a good controller is found, players will be able to dive right into the tutorial. This will go over the basics of flying and delivering; the controls are fairly intuitive on the controller, so no one should have any problems in the tutorial getting down the very basics.
The Gameplay of Flying Neko Delivery
The gameplay focuses mainly on flying and delivering. Players are trained to pick up packages, and then a marker on the map is created. You can follow it to its destination, drop off the package, and then earn in-game money to purchase furniture for your home and boost foods for buffs while flying.
On top of delivery packages, players can earn money by fulfilling goals. While out in the world, Onigiri can also pick up a variety of plants to create their own foods. This will also help to complete quests as well.
Also, players can make friends by delivering packages to certain NPCs. If the package has a name on it rather than a delivery location, there will be an NPC there that you can upgrade your friendship. This includes some other adorable animals like the cute as-heck Aka, who is a fox that lives in a tree nearby Onigiri’s home.
By the time I finished playing this game, I had three hearts with Aka, so I don’t know what happens when you fill-up the whole thing. But I had a lot of trouble getting to her home, which is most of the reason why I stopped playing Flying Neko Delivery.
How It Feels to Fly a Neko-Driven Broom
Driving the broom in Flying Neko Delivery is really difficult. The controls are floaty, making precision completely impossible. The broom is hard to get going in the right direction, and the turns require a massive radius to get going. Although the tutorial did go over all the directions on how to fly, I didn’t feel like I ever actually grasped them well.
Dreaded Stamina
There is stamina of a sort, which is one of the things I hate most in games. There is absolutely no reason for most games in most places to have stamina; just about every game I’ve ever played with it has done nothing but annoy me. Breath of the Wild‘s stamina didn’t really stop you from doing anything, it was just annoying. Same with similar titles like Skyward Sword, Valheim, Nioh, and plenty of others. I detest stamina bars; it’s just a way to try to keep you from having fun. There are few games that do it well, and most of those are horror titles or Elden Ring.
Flying Neko Delivery is one that doesn’t do it well.
It gets even weirder when you consider that a) you can just turn the stamina off in the menu, and b) it keeps you from boosting while high in the air, but stamina disappears when closer to the ground. What is the point of this? To keep players from hitting the skybox? I don’t understand why it was done this way.
The best way to move around in Flying Neko Delivery is to slam your broom against the ground at the right angle, and it sends your broom forward at speeds that actually distort the world around you. It’s so fast that trees get weirdly wide and blades of grass become massive. It’s kind of hard to aim, but you can use it to get much closer to your goal in seconds. I don’t think this was intended. It was hard to get a screenshot of it, but I did my best:
Decorating Your Cat’s Home
Okay, so let’s talk about the fun stuff in this game. Furniture is cheap and can be purchased almost anywhere. Players can get small beds and massive couches, tiny ovens and huge chairs, tiny desks and weirdly large books. You can place just about everything with Animal Crossing: New Horizon rules, and make a comfy little house all your own.
By day 3, I had cleaned out several stores and tossed a ton of furniture into my house, shifting everything around to get as much of it in there as possible. I love decorating; I don’t know if you can upgrade your home at some point, but I really hope you can. I want like six rooms just piled high with cute little beds and chairs. Also, I want to be able to change the colors of things, but I’m also not sure if you can do that either.
Conclusion
The whole reason that I never found out if you can do any of these things is that this game is kind of hard to play. It was not very fun while I was fumbling with the controls for the first bit, then it was fun for a while, and then it got boring. I didn’t get to do anything but deliver packages, throw myself at impossible speeds across the world, and then fill my house with furniture. Once my house was full, I didn’t have anything to do with my money and I was delivering packages for no reason.
I liked the concept of the game, I just wish there was a little more to hold my interest. This game has a lot going for it, but I’m not sure if this game is enough to hold anyone’s attention for more than a few hours.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure.
