Parcel Corps Review

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, but it’s also a curse we all need to live with. Whether it’s memories of our favourite games or movies, or the simpler times we used to have as kids, it’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Our memories are fragile though, and our brains do a great deal of trickery to fill in a lot of the gaps. And that’s where the curse comes into play. Should we get the chance to partake in those old experiences again, it’s never quite the same. The controls are never quite as tight, the visuals aren’t as great as you remember and now you’re finding all sorts of holes in that story that had you gripped.

Here is where Parcel Corps comes into play. The gameplay taps into those memories of old arcade style games that you wished didn’t have a timer like Crazy Taxi and Tony Hawks Pro Skater. The cel shaded visuals and music show clear inspiration from Jet Set Radio. For someone who grew up with the these games, throwing them all together sounded amazing, I grew to understand why you were on a timer, and it wasn’t only to get more money from you!

Parcel Corp puts you in the bike shoes of a cycle courier out to make a name for themselves, and a few bucks. Just like Crazy Taxi, you pull into a pickup point, collect the package and then tear off towards your destination on a timer. Along the way you can throw in a few tricks with some having added benefits like wall rides to clear gaps and avoid stairs without slowing down. This builds a boost bar that can then obviously be used to shave a few seconds of your next delivery. Utilising wall rides also get your to higher platforms and rooftops, opening up a lot of shortcuts. As you learn each part of the city, you’ll remember optimal routes and start to make a mockery of some of the timers.

It hooks you really quickly and the gameplay is incredibly fun, easy to pick up and it does throw in the odd challenge. It also has that great, just one more go loop that can see you lose hours. Just pop to a pick up, drop it off, do a bit of random exploring while pulling off sick tricks, and build up each clients trust level. It’s a great thing to fire on for a bit in between something meatier and that’s no bad thing as it does mix things up. For a start, you need to find and impress all your own clients despite working for a corporation. Every time you find somewhere new, you scan the QR code outside and they give you various challenges. This might be finding a specific client, posting up flyers or making multiple deliveries in the one run. These were fun interruptions and often led to humorous conversations with the menagerie of clientele.

These folk are wild bunch with a mix of weird animal/human hybrids, folks with fruits for heads, caricatures of various nationalities and well known social groups. Almost all of them instantly ignore the fact you’re a bike courier and wax lyrical about their wares. The chats are good fun, but some of them do go on a bit. Thankfully the voice acting is mostly of high quality and as I said, it can be quite funny. I was also caught off guard when Ben, from Triple Jump, turned up as the sarcastic the newscaster in between story breaks. It’s all a bit hammy but it’s never treads into the cringe.

Once you’ve done enough jobs for these lovely folks, you get the chance to take part in a delivery rush. Here, you get a timer and making a pick up or delivery adds time. The higher your trust level, the higher the time and the bigger the cash reward, so it’s worth getting as many of them levelled up to max as possible. Score high enough and this usually unlocks the next part of the city. And before I forget, there’s also some time trials you can take part in after you meet a MAMIL.

On the surface it looks like there’s a ton to do, but it gets repetitive fairly quickly. There’s only so much you can do with the basic idea and having a free roam with no timer means it’s just rinse and repeat until you get bored. It’s not built for extended play sessions in its current state and I’d like to see something to break up those moments. Yes, there are multiplayer options and yes, there are a few old arcade games to play, but it doesn’t break it up enough. It feels like it needs a time of day system, and when it’s dark for example, you go home and get a report on the day.

But then again, this feels like I’m being ignorant to the point of the story and the suggestion that these folks don’t actually get a break if they want to survive. It’s up to them when they stop but ultimately, they’re not making enough to stop when they should, all the while there’s someone sitting on their backside making bank for doing bugger all. It’s a great topic to take a look at and avoids being heavy handed by adding a good dose of humour.

The presentation is also a real highlight with a cel shaded style that really pops. Each of the three courier groups and nine character have a unique visual style that separates them as well. The city areas are all diverse with beaches, parks, quaysides, busy centres and the occasional building you can cycle through. There’s a ton of pedestrians and street furniture to get in your way and the aforementioned shortcuts to help you avoid them all. There’s moving traffic that loves to pop out of a tunnel as you’re crossing the road to wipe you out… but it’s all good fun and easy to find a rhythm. It’s just a shame there’s some odd visual glitches. In one cutscene for example, folk had sunk up to their knees in the floor. Parts of the environment popped in out of nowhere as well, but this was minimal. I clipped through the walls a fair few times when trying to wallride as well and ended up stuck behind scaffolding or rocks. It was all very infrequent, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

And that’s Parcel Corps in a nutshell. It will pull at those nostalgia strings for a lot of gamers and there’s a lot of fun to be had here. But, ultimately the repetitive nature of the gameplay limits the time you want to spend with it. The story isn’t enough to carry it because progress is locked behind long grinds. It also reuses so many cutscenes when you enter a new area or start a delivery rush I was skipping them. I understand it’s efficient, but when it comes to the delivery rush, I didn’t need to see it again. Just give me the pop up to let me know it’s available, and let me get on with it. I had a lot of hope for this game and maybe my expectations were too high, but it’s kinda missed the mark for me. There’s a great game here and I can’t really say I’m disappointed, I just expected a bit more.