Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories Review – I want to try Melon Pop

RPG maker-style games have a reputation for telling compelling and surprisingly dark stories, often using their pixelated art style to subvert your expectations and lower your guard before hitting you with chilling scares or emotional takes that leave you feeling for the characters in ways you never thought you could.

While Melon Journey: Bitter Sweet Memories wasn’t made in the RPG Maker engine, it’s visually similar and stays true to this reputation, with a touching story that delves into the topics of political corruption and intrigue in a small town that’s banned melons.

Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is a story-exploration game about getting caught up in the outlandish happenings of a small town where melons are illegal. The game claims to be silly and cute on the surface, with a darker secret hiding behind the subtext of being an adorable game about a girl wearing fake bunny ears. However, besides some shady dealings, the game never really seemed to break away from its cute tones, and I didn’t feel like there was some horrible subtext trying to subvert me with the cute world around me.

That’s probably for the best because we are at a point with releases like these where I’ve started to expect this so-called unexpected twist. I haven’t trusted a game since Doki Doki Literature Club.

That being said, Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories does tackle some very adult and seedy elements. Themes of political corruption, backroom deals, and other very real and very dangerous concepts are explored and commented on through the game’s story. It just isn’t done in a way where you feel like Melon Journey was secretly a horror game the whole time.

In Melon Journey, you play as Honeydew, the employee of a melon soda factory who wears an adorable bunny ear headband everywhere she goes. One day, your friend Cantaloupe leaves work mysteriously and leaves you a message asking you to meet him in Hog Town, a city where melons are banned, and owning one can get you arrested. When you arrive and discover Cantaloupe is missing, you begin to investigate your friend’s ominous disappearance and the connection it has to the town’s ongoing election.

When I say that the game doesn’t break away from its cute presentation, I mean that the story never takes a shocking 180 like it would in Doki Doki Literature Club or other serious games hiding behind a cute presentation. That doesn’t mean that the story isn’t serious or contains ominous tones; It feels like a piece of children-friendly media that takes its audience seriously, not willing to pull any punches but also not trying to shock or scare.

The characters in Melon Journey are charming and just a little bit absurd. It’s easy to draw parallels to Earthbound or Undertale with how the game is written. The writing doesn’t take itself too seriously and isn’t afraid to tell a joke or four while presenting its social commentary. Most of the game’s humor comes from the characters being silly and absurdist, which is befitting of the setting.

Particularly, I found myself the biggest fan of our main character, Honeydew. This is definitely due in large part to the bunny ears. While many of the characters are great, the game does a poor job of making you feel attached to more than a few of the characters you’re clearly supposed to be attached to, which gives me the impression that this game might be a sequel with returning characters.

Outside of the game’s charming writing, there isn’t a whole lot more to say about it. Gameplay is pretty much exactly what you might expect by looking at it; You traverse the map, talking to characters and interacting with the world, occasionally picking up an item or two. At most the gameplay offers you a few puzzles, but it’s more or less a visual novel.

Graphically, Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is designed to look like an old Gameboy game. The aesthetic fits the world really well, especially with the constant talk of melons befitting the green overlay.

The game features 90 Lo-Fi jazz tracks, which are also a fantastic choice for what the game is. The whole thing feels like an old noir with a cute twist, and this feeling is definitely amplified by the music. There wasn’t a point in the game where I felt like the music was getting repetitive, thanks to the extensive song library and the short playtime.

Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories, despite its $15 price tag, only runs about 2-3 hours of total playtime. Maybe I missed some side quests or something, but the game felt over and done with incredibly quickly.

While this keeps the pretty basic gameplay from overstaying its welcome, but I have a hard time justifying the price of the game for the experience I got. While I want the devs to be rewarded for their hard work,, I don’t think I can say the price point is reasonable for the length of the game.

Comparatively, Undertale, a similar game that can run upwards of 20 hours if you complete all content, goes for $9.99 on steam. However, this may also be because of the increased complexity of Undertale’s gameplay, and the random encounters that ensue while traversing the map.

A game doesn’t have to be long to be good, but the price point should reasonably match the experience you get. For Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories, the journey was short, cute, and ultimately forgettable, While I’m sure there are people out there who will enjoy Melon Journey much more than I did, I don’t really think the experience justified the price.

Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories was reviewed on the PC. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is available on Steam and Nintendo Switch.