I’ve never been much of a purveryor of cozy games. I typically elect to dial games up to the highest difficulty in hopes of seeing who’ll break first—me or the game. Something about running up against a difficulty wall over and over until I finally surmount it just resonates with me. That said, after a playthrough of Emergo Entertainment’s low-stakes narrative adventure, Fireside, I finally understand the appeal of the cozy genre.
The beginning of Fireside’s whimsical journey also happens to be its darkest moment. You find yourself on a lifeboat during a stormy night out at sea, sailing away from the sinking remains of your ship. Down with it went all of the wares with which you hoped to expand your business as a traveling merchant, and soon your lifeboat succumbs to the sea as well. You wash up along the shore with whatever you happen to grab nearby, left with little to call your own besides your new life as a castaway.
You wake up under the watchful eye of Costa, a fellow castaway (yes, most of the important NPCs have similarily punny names) who helps you get your bearings and encourages you to make the most of your situation. Lucky for you, a whole slew of people—and mythical beings—have washed up on the island over the years, and they’re all willing to trade with you. Some individuals will value certain items more than others, allowing you to maximize your profits assuming you’ve got the goods they require.
Unlucky for you, a mishap with a mysterious shrine leaves your soul inextricably linked to the warden of the island’s spirit nexus, Knack, who’s a bit grumpy that the nexus is in disarray following years of neglect. Thanks to the unintended soul mish-mash, your traveling days in the physical world are limited to a mere five days, although acquiring materials to upgrade the various aspects of your new home can expand the duration of your journeys. After those initial five days are up, however, you’ll be sent back home with only a handful of items from your backpack.
During each journey, you can acquire items to trade through exploration. Each path to the next campsite offers different items to pick up along the way, creating minor strategic elements in the direction you choose. Sometimes travelers will even tip you off about someone nearby who wants a certain item. You can even combine food items you find to create anything from fruit salad to soda to… fried ice? I am a bit curious how that last one tastes. Regardless, cooking increasingly complex dishes is a great way to acquire items with a lot of trading power, freeing up your inventory and making it easier to acquire costly upgrade materials. There’s no downside to experimenting, either, as items aren’t consumed if they can’t be combined.
While journeying between campsites there are also random events to encounter that have multiple outcomes. There are optimal outcomes to each scenario, which either provide you with an item or spirit energy, as well as non-optimal outcomes that drain your spirit energy. The novelty of events does begin to wear off after you’ve encountered the same one a few times, as the outcomes themselves are static. Still, it can be satisfying to know just what to do in a given situation, and ocassionally your actions during an encounter will have repercussions down the road.
Spirit energy is a valuable resource in Fireside. You earn it by being considerate of others, and the amount you earn through trading depends on how good a deal you offered. You can use this spirit energy to send items back home ahead of you through shrines, or save up enough to earn spirit tokens that let you upgrade the shrines themselves. This allows you to start your journey from shrines you’ve repaired, allowing you to make the most of your limited travel time. When it was time for a journey to end, I found that it was wise to simply offload any items that I couldn’t take with me to whoever was nearby just to be nice (and to gain more spirit energy).
There are three main areas to explore—the river delta, forest, and mountain—although you’ll be limited to the river delta as a starting area until you progress further in the story. Each area has a main narrative to follow in restoring the spirit nexus as well as a few side stories where you can help out increasingly enigmatic travelers. The best way to figure out what to do is to just talk to whoever you meet, as they’ll usually tell you rumors leading to whatever problems need solved in the area. My favorite encounter was probably an axolotl named Iggy with big aspirations to become a dragon. Me too, Iggy, me too.
Each area also has ambient music reflecting their themes. The river delta’s track is uplifting and calm, slowly rising like the tide. The forest’s track is enchanting and mysterious, just like its deepest depths. The mountain’s track is somber and reflective, like a long journey finally nearing it’s end. Coupled with the whimsical, hand-drawn art style, there’s a feeling that Fireside was crafted with attentive love and care.
By the time I finished each area, I’d grown fond of all the people I’d helped along the way. Whether I was helping a mermaid and reverse mermaid understand one another, giving a capybara in a mobile hot tub some rad sunglasses, or helping an eldritch entity become a one-man band, there was a certain lighthearted charm in seeing people become their best selves thanks in part to my efforts.
While each character holds a special place in my heart, following the conclusion of my journey through Fireside I felt a little stilted that your interactions with them are essentially over once they’ve gotten what they wanted. For major NPCs you get one round of concluding dialogue after you finish their quest chain, and then they just repeat the same dialogue every time you encounter them afterwards. I was hoping for some kind of reaction after I finished the story when I went around each area for my victory lap, only to realize that that game of cards I kept getting invited to was going to forever remain an empty promise.
Every journey comes to an end, however, and the developers can’t very well provide limitless content just for my enjoyment. Being satisfied with the experiences I had along the way while helping this colorful cast of characters will have to be enough, and I have no doubt I’ll play through Fireside again some day when I just want to have a relaxing evening with some old friends.
Austin reviewed Fireside on the Nintendo Switch with a review code.
