Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion first caught my eye with its cute vegetables and its peculiar name. Why would a vegetable have to commit tax evasion? This spiked my interest, compelling me to pick up the game by Snoozy Kazoo and give it a go. Does Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion manage to be a compelling game, or is its name the most interesting part?
STORY
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion follows the titular Turnip Boy, who receives a tax bill for his greenhouse from Mayor Onion. He rips up this Tax bill, ignoring it. This leads to Mayor Turnip taking the greenhouse and accusing Turnip Boy of Tax evasion, forcing him to become his assistant and run errands for him as retribution for his crime.
The game then follows Turnip Boy as he runs these errands, exploring different areas and fetching things to progress the story. The lore if read gets surprisingly deep for the game, having more layers (vegetable pun intended) than I originally expected the story to have in the game. Overall the story at face value is surface deep, but as you progress it goes down a path that is not foreseen.
GAMEPLAY
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a top down hack and slash RPG. You will be exploring the area within and around Veggieville in order to obtain items and complete quests for various NPCs, and fighting your way through enemies as you do.
EXPLORATION
Exploration is encouraged through the use of side quests from various docs. These usually boil down to fetch this item for me and bring it back, which is simple. The puzzle-like mechanics encourage exploration further in order to figure out the way forward in dungeons and areas that you must complete to progress the main story.
The exploration isn’t anything grand in this game, as it is short, however I found my time exploring Veggieville and the surrounding areas to be enjoyable. It kept my attention and I never felt annoyed at having to go to a new area or backtrack to return someone’s item. Overall the exploration is nice.
COMBAT
Combat in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is hack and slash, with mainly using a sword in order to fight small fry. Turnip Boy has a heart meter a la Legend of Zelda, which signifies his health. There are different mechanics thrown in for bosses though, such as the ability to use bombs in order to damage them or fire learned from puzzles used during exploration.
Overall combat in this game can be shallow. Most of it boils down to whacking the enemy a certain number of times until it dies. The bosses have some unique mechanics, but the first two bosses I easily mowed through using bombs. Overall the combat is inoffensive for the length of the game.
GRAPHICS
The graphics of Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion are clean and cute. The art is always a big thing for me personally when considering if I want to play a game, and the cute vegetables definitely drew me in. The environments look good too, and there are no instances where I thought something looked out of place or ugly compared to the rest of the game.
AUDIO
There is no voice acting in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. There is background music, which is mostly calming and matching the environment that this game takes place in. I found the background music to fit the game, however it also felt forgettable. Not a soundtrack I would listen to outside of playing this game.
CONCLUSION
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion was a fun experience, with many comedy moments to be had and some twists. The gameplay in general is simple but that doesn’t hold the game back, and I feel that my time was well spent playing the game. The only con I can think of that I havent gone over is the game only took me roughly 2 hours to complete, which is a very short run time even for a game that costs 14.99 USD on the Nintendo Switch Shop.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion gets a 7/10.
