to a T – PS5 Review

From yer man Keita Takahashi’s studio uvula and publisher Annapurna, we have to a T. The uvula being the fleshy bit at the back of the throat. You play as a thirteen-year-old boy, who’s shaped like a T, across eight episodes of steadily increasing whimsy. Bearing in mind Takahashi’s previous in the first couple of Katamari Damacy games and Noby Noby Boy for Namco then sacking it off and going to design playgrounds in Nottingham, we shouldn’t be that surprised.

He couldn’t stay away though and formed uvula with his wife in 2011, releasing the delightfully bizarre Wattam on PS4 in 2019 as well as Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure for that expensive Playdate console that we’ve never quite been able to justify the expense of. to a T is very much recognisable as a Keita Takahashi game, not least because of the graphical style, but also because of the gloriously daft thread of silliness that pervades.

Set in a coastal Japanese town, you first choose your character’s name. Being an idiot, we called him Ian as that’s really bloody Japanese of course. You’re stuck with your initial name, so be careful. We did call our dog Ichiro at least after this reviewer’s favourite baseball player, so that’s not quite as jarring.

Your first task upon waking up is to carry out your morning ablutions, not quite a shower, shave and sh*t, but not far off it. First you go to the loo, though it’s very tastefully done. It’s all behind a wall so you don’t actually see anything. Then you have a wash, though  it’s little more than washing the sleepy dust from your eyes. After having breakfast, you brush your teeth too. The controls are all mapped out with handy tooltips and we never struggled throughout our playthrough.

The best part is the little adaptions made to your tap in  the bathroom or your super long breakfast spoon to compensate for the fact you’re the shape of a T. It’s almost like adaptions made for disabled people, so while uvula might’ve dialled up the whimsy to maximum, it’s very cleverly done.

Next you’ll go to school by way of the sandwich shop run by a giraffe for reasons we’re still not entirely sure about. After a bit more exploration you’ll get to school and face the first of several lessons, that being physical education with Miss Swan. Subsequent lessons include science and maths.

Then you’ll face a bizarre chain of events in which a wind turbine flies into a school and you end up saving a girl who until then, had been bullying you for being shaped like a T. At first, you’re not entirely sure whether the sequence had been a dream, but when the bullies are suddenly liking you, you begin to realise that it might’ve been real after all. We’ll spare you the rest of the story but it continues in the same vein with a charmingly off-kilter feeling.

As well as the storyline trophies you’ll garner through natural gameplay, you’ll have the opportunity to play a few fun minigames including sandwiches and popcorn when you visit the giraffe. These are pretty challenging if we’re honest, particularly if you want to top the leaderboard and get the associated trophy, but they’re a lot of fun to just play. That, we suggest, was uvula’s goal here.

At first, you’ll be limited to walking around on foot, though you can sprint by holding . Later on you’ll get access to a talking unicycle, which ticks the practical and whimsy box a treat.

If we’ve any gripes, it is that to a T’s chapter-based nature makes it tough to just dip in and dip out, especially given the infrequency of saves. It’s no bad thing as it also stops you tearing through what would be a fairly sparse package otherwise if you weren’t replaying the minigames.

In conclusion, to a T is a fun game with the daftness you’d expect from a Keita Takahashi game. Yes, it’s a bit short if you whip through it, so it’s a game best savoured.