Mail Time Review: Delivering A Moderate Platformer
Nobody likes a nosey parker, even if that nosey parker is a plucky mail scout. You see, our rosey-cheeked delivery person likes to know what’s nestled inside of her customer’s sealed envelopes, and can’t help but eavesdrop on every conversation she comes across. Yes, it’s funny how an innocent little cupcake can be such a prying Penelope, but at least she’s otherwise friendly and benign, which speaks loudly about the cheery and innocent presentation of this laid-back platformer. Does Mail Time sign, seal and deliver a good time, or is it just junk mail?
Keeping You Posted
Marrying a postal delivery service with PS2-style classic platforming, Mail Time serves as both a nostalgic reminder of the halcyon days of platformers from twenty years ago, as well as your local and trusty postmen and postwomen who deliver your mail reliably day in and day out. The unique and peculiar fusion of mailing and platforming is a breezy and liberating one, but the relaxing pace reinforces its gentle and accommodating presentation.
Mail Time has you exploring a condensed colourful world filled with memorable and diverse anthropomorphic characters in a pretty settlement tucked inside and around an overgrowth of statuesque sunflowers, a setting that echoes the natural pastures of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, like a village where everyone knows almost everyone else, and where conversations and concerns are aplenty as you utilize your mail-delivering qualities to help out the residents and solve their pressing problems.
No berg is without drama and you’ll find courtesy and conflict are day-to-day happenings in Mail Time, with characters either coming across as pleasantly welcoming or argumentative and detestable. For every breath of fresh air like the delightfully chirpy Annie, there’s a detestable and uncaring denizen like the money-obsessed Kiki you need to be mindful of. If you thought everything would be paradise, palm trees and pineapples, you’d be wrong. There are no pineapples or palm trees here. What there is, is a microcosm of familiar adult concerns, like a disgruntled tenant who wants to file a complaint to his landlord because his neighbour is too loud for him to cope with. Such instances of unrest don’t happen much in Mail Time, but when they do they can go against the generally uplifting vibes of the game, but thankfully don’t get in the way too much to be an outright hindrance to the good times.
There’s a lovely neighbour-like aesthetic to the land you inhabit, encouraging you to chinwag with everybody and discover their dilemmas and problems, so you can use the undeniable power of passing an envelope to solve quarrels and exchange information from one local to another. Conversations are told through speech bubbles, and these chit-chats can drag on as the citizens can be too verbose, but they usually culminate with you hunting for the characters you’ve been charged to give each letter to.
All of the mail you need to deliver can be seen crammed on the left side of the screen with the animal chaps you need to track down. There is no map, minimap or waypoints, so it can be a chore trying to find all the characters without traipsing back and forth laboriously. Furthermore, the characters can be clueless as to the whereabouts of others, forcing you to go out of your way to press on and locate hopeful letter recipients.
Another significant ding in Mail Time’s letterbox is the disappointingly cardboard environment. You can’t enter houses as doors are plainly decorative designs. Interactions are also non-existent outside of the protagonist exchanging conversations with the woodland creature residents, so therefore it’s difficult to be invested and connected to the community when they aren’t nattering at each other and leave it to the trusty mail-handler to get an earful.
Posthaste Platforming
Though most of your movements in Mail Time involve running about, finding your furry friends and handing them envelopes, the glider you’re equipped with is a delightfully practical tool to use when you need to cover as much ground as possible. You can’t beat leaping from the edge of a rock and witnessing the fluttering of the glider as it whispers and sways you merrily through the wind, such pleasantries lend a soothing reminder to you to take your job as slowly and leisurely as you like-thankfully there are no time limits, otherwise this gliding contraption would be as much use as getting Kiki to care about her customers.
Delivering mail requires that you actively locate the woodland rascals hanging about in Grumblewood Grove. Sometimes this requires you to jump up and balance on rope, so you can hop across and onto wooden drawbridges that connect you to rooftops. This is how you are able to discover Clarence and their mischievous ways, especially relating to his problems with Egbert. Straddling ropes, jumping and gliding all feel reminiscent of old middling PS2-era platformers, and while Mail Time can don you with rose-tinted specs, the precariousness of tight-roping isn’t ideal because teetering and worrying about whether you’ll slide off the rope is a nagging concern.
During your mailing adventures you’ll come across collectible tat that can be worth something good like bottlecaps and other nick-nacks. There are a few quests tied to these collectibles, but they don’t serve as a major proponent to the game’s storyline and you might not want to bother picking this tat up if you don’t think it’s worth much, you could always bounce on mushrooms and glide gleefully through the air instead.
Customized Postage
Customization is an unexpectedly deep part of Mail Time. Boasting a plethora of clothing, hairstyle, backpack, outfit and glider combinations, you can deck out the player character in all manner of snazzy threads and outlandish mop tops, apparently over 46,000 combinations-not too shabby for an obscure indie curio.
Though the protagonist is customizable, nothing else in Mail Time can be decorated, so the ability to be creative is pretty much non-existent, but then again not every game has a glider you can change and make out of newspaper.
What isn’t customizable but is very much about looks is Mail Time’s visual style. It’s fine and dandy for an indie title, and the colours used give a gentle and sweet note to the game that reflects its welcoming simplicity.
Overall
Sending you mail with a smiley face, Mail Time is a sweet game with a well-meaning heart and its leisurely pace should keep gamers tuning in until they’ve dispatched every last envelope. Good character customization gives you a nice amount of freedom to kit out your post-delivery scout, and Grumblewood Grove is a pleasant and verdant setting. Platforming with the glider is also very well implemented into the experience and complements the game’s easygoing tendencies. However, the cardboard-like design of houses are off-putting, conversations and activities are too hollow with no proper interactions between characters, and despite its lovely qualities, the protagonist can be a bit too intrusive about her woodland friends and their business. If you fancy a jaunty mail-centered platformer you can do much worse than Mail Time. It’s not quite priority mail, but manages to avoid being returned to sender. So open this envelope up and you might find something appealing inside.
Final Verdict: 3/5
Available on: PS5 (Reviewed), PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC; Publisher: Freedom Games; Developer: Kela van der deijl; Players: 1; Released: October 19th, 2023; ESRB: Everyone; MSRP: $19.99
Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Mail Time provided by the publisher.