REVIEW: ‘To A T’ Shows Our Differences Make Us Special Even If The Charm Wears Thin

Kids nowadays are missing out on a memorable common experience, Saturday Morning Cartoons. With the stranglehold of streaming services and instant gratification on our lives, those shared schoolyard moments are a thing of the past. They can be mimicked, but the feeling of getting up before anyone else in the family is up, making a big bowl of cereal, and watching Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, Digimon, and more air their brand new episodes can’t be beat. That’s where Uvula LLC, Keita Takahashi, and Annapurna Interactive’s new game, To a T, falls. It’s a wacky episodic experience that sadly falls flat, but may be a new favorite game for younger audiences.

Created by Keita Takahashi, the father of Katamari Damacy, To a T has you play as a child just turning 13, that is generally referred to as the “Teen”. This child has a birth defect: their arms are always up, so they look like a T. They can move their hands, but to do anything else, they need lots of assistance. That’s where their mom and dog come into play.

The dog (that you get to name!) is like a service animal. They help the child dress, go to the bathroom, wash up, and get around places. Their Mom is very handy and adapts everyday objects, like a spoon to eat cereal, to meet this child’s needs. The story is a slice-of-life anime, where you follow and help the child get through eight episodes of hijinks, finding out what makes them special and why they are stuck in this predicament.

The story covers many bases a very different child from their peers goes through in their daily life. Even bullying and how it affects younger people is covered. Yet the town they live in is very helpful in helping this child feel accepted and get through the day. Even the walk lights on street corners have cute pictures of a person with their arms stuck out like the Teen. Even though the story itself feels very shallow, particularly with its late-game reveals of the child’s parentage, Everyone’s happy-go-lucky nature can’t help but bring a smile.

Keita Takahashi’s To a T can’t help but put a smile on your face.

What’s most interesting about the story’s pacing is its episodic structure. Each episode plays out almost exactly like an old Saturday morning cartoon. There’s a fun preamble of the Teen, their dog, or friends getting into a situation. Then, the opening song kicks in. Watching that song play out multiple times, while catchy, did get old after playing multiple episodes back to back. But it was fun to watch it evolve as the Teen’s situation changed over time.

Then, the bulk of the episode plays out. Once you reach the end, an end song plays to cap it all off. While the opening song is about the Teen (and why they are more than their disability), the end credit song focuses on a side character, Giraffe, who runs all the snack businesses around this area with her family. That’s just a fun little way to bring more context about why a Giraffe is making so much food, and a charming touch. Plus, this end-credit song brings back so many memories from being younger and watching cartoons.

To a T’s overall story is a G-rated story that almost rivals a pre-k cartoon with its messaging. It spells out every message that may be easily digestible for younger gamers, but doesn’t leave room for thought or wonder. The oversimplicity is even tied to what is supposed to be a big reveal of the child’s father’s identity. You may be able to guess it and think to yourself that that idea is too ridiculous, but it isn’t.

The art style, though, is simply adorable. It’s like a new spin on the Peanuts with how everyone looks. Beady eyes and simple drawn noses with e a comic’s Ben Day Dots effect scattered throughout. Every character’s simple features still find ways to express depth and distinctness for the eyes to digest easily. And it is cartoonishly absurd enough for specific characters to have a uniqueness that works in this world.

To a T boasts a unique, adorable, and eye-catching art style.

Granted, To a T‘s simplification, even with its gameplay, may be because it’s targeting a younger audience. As someone who just turned 32, I had difficulty finding enjoyment playing alone for this review, especially after ingesting content that is targeted to younger children and has depth and brevity to its own messaging.

Regardless, an idea of a coming-of-age story is being told in a way that’s similar to Dragon Tales or Blue’s Clues. It’s phrased so that reaching the Teenage milestone isn’t scary. It’s almost reflective of real life, where when turning 13, it’s not a switch and BOOM, you now have responsibilities and know everything. You’re still evolving, learning, and age is just a milestone. Again, all told in an easily understood way for young kids.

Even the self-insert opportunities, like being able to dress yourself to match styles you like that aren’t tied to a gender, choosing your features, or even naming your dog, still ended with failed attempts to connect to the overall story during my playthrough. However, young people or adults playing with their kids may not have that issue. Dressing and designing someone could be a fun new way to add more enjoyment to this experience.

There are some fun moments that anyone may be able to find enjoyment in. Like many slice-of-life anime, a couple of episodes are tangent adventures. These give context to what a character is up to, like what the dog was up to on a given day or the mom’s past. They’re fun and ridiculous as you’d almost expect a story in this world to be. These chapters were major highlights. They were still telling a similar message of acceptance, just with a more unique and enjoyable lens.

Maybe instead of trying to tell a more grounded story with outlandish elements of why our uniqueness isn’t inhibitory, but can be used to be our strengths, the writing could have leaned more into the wackiness of the world. To a T, it was still able to get its message across in those chapters, while simply being funnier, more involved, and meshing well with this world.

Quest completion, timing, and repetitive dialogue moments start to weigh down this game’s charm.

As mentioned before, the gameplay is as basic as To a T’s story. For the most part, you’ll be walking around the town going from objective to objective.  Some daily habit actions are seeded in throughout an episode, like brushing the child’s teeth, washing their face, and eating an odd cereal combination every morning. These each play into the obstacles the child faces, given their situation, and add to some clever things I didn’t consider.

Take washing your face. It’s premised as something that should be done to help clean the child’s eye boogers out. If you choose not to do this later on, you may notice those eye boogers appearing during cutscenes. That’s just a nice little touch, almost keying in to the importance of cleanliness and tying those more into daily habits.

Other times, simple minigames will start without warning as you progress through the story. In a later chapter, you can bounce the mom around a forest, like Brick Breaker, to collect gems. There are no repercussions for doing these minigames poorly. Heck, if you want, you could fail them almost immediately and move on with the story. If they’re so non-impactful except for maybe an achievement, why even have them in here in the first place?

These were most fun when they impacted how the story played out. Like when you play as the dog and must race animals to unlock a mystery only the animals have discovered. Even then, these are so fey and far between that the game is basically an open-world walking sim. What’s worse is the child’s companions are so freaking annoying.

Whenever a companion is forced to follow you around or lead you in these types of games, one of my biggest fears is that they either move at a pace that doesn’t match your own or talk way too much. Just about every one of the companions here is the latter.

Imagine running from one objective to another with about five minutes to reach. They’ll speak every 3-4 seconds in their nonsensical language, repeating the same three lines. I had to turn off the sound because of how repetitive it became. Once or twice would have been enough to explain that one of the child’s friends is scared, not continuously.

To a T is a game that will benefit younger audiences. 

With the child’s unique shape, exploration is a little fun thanks to leaning into the absurdity of what’s going on. Eventually, the child learns how to fly by spinning their arms. This adds much-needed depth to running around and collecting money for more clothes. There’s also a talking unicycle (that thankfully only really talks when you summon it) that helps get around town faster. The main game mostly feels like it’s exploring the city, where the shorter story feels like a prequel to reach that point.

And that’s not speaking of the bugs. Several times, simple actions just never worked. Twice, the game crashed or had to be reset to get back to normal. In one instance, the child opened a door. But instead of walking through it, they turned sideways. The game locked at that point. This issue wasn’t repeatable, but it wasn’t the only time the game forgot how to complete certain actions, locking me out from moving anywhere.

To a T, tries hard to be like a Saturday morning cartoon. Yet just like trying to recapture that same experience nowadays, it overall feels like it’s missing something. Granted, this issue may mostly apply to older players. Maybe, the ones who will find the most fun are those who play this with young kids, and find new bonding moments with them instead of a cultural moment like Saturday morning cartoons felt for us older folks. And that is totally fine.

To a T is available May 28th on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC