Looking at it at face value, Little Goody Two Shoes looks like weeb fodder that many gamers will steer clear of, but with a darker tone hidden between the bright and colorful anime appearance, it’s quite intriguing. Part fairy tale, part horror narrative, and part dating sim, I want to thank Astral Shift and Square Enix for the reviewing opportunity!
Little Goody Two Shoes takes place in a fairy tale world where Elise, a young woman who was mysteriously found in the forest as an infant, yearns for a lavish lifestyle away from the village she now resides in. Lately, local superstition has been taking hold of the villagers, and with the discovery of red shoes on her property, Elise now finds herself torn between the life she knows, and a darker mysterious one awaiting her in the woods.
Little Goody Two Shoes‘s controls are simple as most of what you have to do involves moving around and interacting with your environment and picking dialogue prompts during conversations. When it comes to the soundtrack, it fits the game’s 90’s anime fantasy vibe and helps set the moods when they’re needed. I felt that the game could have used some more voice acting, to be honest.
The art of Little Goody Two Shoes is what you would expect for a game that was clearly inspired by early 90’s animes and even has a VHS feel to it. The sprites are well-animated and detailed but the character art for one of Elise’s potential love interests, Freya, could have been done better around her ankles as they looked gnarled as if Speedracer ran them over a couple of times… I can’t unsee that.
Little Goody Two Shoes‘ gameplay is relatively simple, as mentioned in the section about the controls. The main thing you do in the game is Help Elise complete work around the village in which she earns money to buy supplies for when the Witching Hour occurs late in the evening. Certain events will pass the time during the day, in which you have to keep Elise fed. I’ll be honest, I was not expecting the dating sim scenario for the game, I’m not really into those kinds of games, especially when they pander to a certain audience (in a perverse sense).
Overall, though Little Goody Two Shoes is not for me, I’m sure others who are into this kind of anime/narrative storytelling may appreciate it. It has its spooky moments, though it takes forever to get to them. On my scale of 1-10 I give the game a 7/10.
Little Goody Two Shoes is out now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
