Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley - Fuddler's Courtship (XS) - Review
by Lee Mehr , posted on 20 January 2025 / 1,118 Views
Before winter sets in, Snufkin and his best friend Moomintroll plan to go on one last escapade before they part ways for the season. As explained in the main game, Snufkin sojourns away for other adventures while Moominvalley's animal residents hibernate. The pair's plan is simple: go on a camping trip away from home and hope to watch fireflies after sundown. Their scheme didn't include any other friends or family members coming along, but that didn't stop them! So, after getting the materials needed for a larger swath of camp-goers, Snufkin and crew eventually stumble upon a shy, love-stricken stranger hanging out in the woods.
As the title suggests, Fuddler's Courtship centers on this new side character, Fuddler, who's pining for the a girl's heart. Since this peculiar character – even donning a pot on his head – isn't very good at swooning, Snufkin and co. are tasked with collecting items for a successful date. But winning someone's affections is rarely that simple.
Given the modest size of the original game and the up-front charge ($3.99) here, Courtship is clearly framed as a side story – a fun little excursion with a simpler concept. If Melody were a typical children's book, then this is equivalent to one of those religiously-themed flip books that'd be bundled alongside it. That's not a dig against it per se, but it does color expectations of how pacing, game design, and a more innocent story can coalesce in a one-hour runtime.
With regards to game design, it's a case of not knowing what you've lost until it's gone. Ancillary features like a topographical map or being able to buff Snufkin's stamina by collect-a-thoning proper cooking ingredients are small things, but they gave more tangibility to the environment; Moominvalley feels like a discreet, untamed woodland area, while this unnamed location doesn't. Granted, this area being more condensed does make these qualms less impactful, but it still illustrates how excising small mechanics from an already-streamlined base game makes interactions feel a tad emptier.
Those ripple effects make their way into its rare puzzles and collect-a-thon opportunities as well. All of Snufkin's three musical instruments are incorporated here – thus implying this occurs after the main game – but without level requirements. Rather than finding more magical music notes, the big collect-a-thon quest here is Fuddler's hidden buttons. It's a fundamentally negligible replacement, but it reinforces how Courtship's design ethos fundamentally feels more ephemeral and unnecessary in the grander scheme of things.
It's not fun to be in the nagging position of detailing what Courtship isn't, but that's impossible to avoid when the tweaked details reinvigorate my frustrations with the… well… tangible hollowness of Melody's design altogether. Sure, I admire re-framing Snufkin and Moomintroll's objectives around playing Matchmaker; moreover, a couple of the ways in which Snufkin's instruments are incorporated here are unique and engaging. The core problem is its better gameplay nuggets can't disguise how the overall work feels as though it's going through the motions yet again.
Courtship's limited narrative fares better, if only for feeling more like a lateral pass to different themes versus a scaled-back restart of the original. In some ways, it's rather nice to avoid any sententious haranguing about industry disrupting Mother Nature in favor of a kid-focused exploration of unrequited love. Sure, getting from point A to point B is a set of "and then this happened…" story beats, but its brevity and earnestness feel more neatly packed for a Moomins story. The autumnal setting, and its focus on the personal, act as a quaint epilogue compared to the original's bombastic finale. It's a shame, then, that appreciating its spirit doesn't necessarily mean it reaches those goals.
Perhaps it's fitting to call Fuddler's Courtship a "dilemma DLC:" the type of short-n-sweet expansion with modest goals that also has to argue for its necessity. Sure, Hyper Games can appeal to its skimpy asking price ($3.99 here); however, since it's asking for more money, it's only fair to inquire what nuances or concepts make it seem worth returning to. Not only is that argument unsuccessfully made, it actually makes a weaker case for itself by scaling back the original's unadventurous template even more. This low-stakes side story has heart, but it also doesn’t have any bones.
Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.
VGChartz Verdict
4.5
Poor
This review is based on a digital copy of Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley - Fuddler's Courtship for the XS
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Lee Mehr is now one of the biggest Moomin game reviewers on the internet.
That is some ugly ass art
The character cut-outs lack texture, but I'm also sympathetic to their simplicity keeping to the original Moomins books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
I know this particular review doesn't draw enough attention to them, but I dig the in-game backgrounds. There's a certain pleasantness to the way they're drawn.
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