POTION Permit is an incredibly fresh approach to the style of life simulators (with RPG elements) we’ve become accustomed to over the past few years, developed by a small Indonesian studio known as MassHive Media.
If you are a fan of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing (or really just the ‘cozy’ genre in general) this game couldn’t be more up your alley. As a genuine fan of the never-ending flow of cozy games, the high saturation of the genre can make newer games seem fairly insignificant. Potion Permit luckily stands out amongst it’s peers most – and for all the right reasons.
Playing as a chemist, you’ll be assigned the responsibility of healing the community of Moonbury’s ailments, all the while trying to gain the trust and gratitude of the local townsfolk as they struggle to overcome their past trauma. Unfortunately, the people of Moonbury have had some blatantly awful experiences with chemists, who didn’t leave the best mark on the town from the last time they visited. Due to these chemists actions, certain plant species have become extinct, the surrounding wilderness has been decimated and the town as a whole has sworn off the use of chemists’ medicine.
It’s arguably the most appealing part of the game, as it’s a much more typical trope in the ‘cozy’ genre to either set off in hopes of discovering and inhabiting new land, or live amongst a town of lovely people who well help you flourish. Potion Permit instead presents you initially as somewhat of an antagonist who needs to work their way through winning over the locals before you can truly progress.
Mechanically, there’s two primary gameplay elements that break down the entirety of Potion Permit: tending to your patients, and adventuring/resource gathering. When a townsperson within Moonbury becomes sick, you’ll need to examine them, identify their illness and then brew a potion to cure their ailment.
Both the identification of the illness and brewing of the potion have short minigames (a variety of minigames for the diagnosis, and a puzzle based game for the brewing of the potion) which are an enjoyable way of presenting the challenge of successfully administering aid, and are aesthetically very on brand with everything the game throws at you. Initially I believed the jenga-styled puzzle for potion brewing potions was gimmicky and impossible to fail, but trust me in this – you can fail, and will fail if you don’t put on your trusty thinking cap (which regrettably is a cap I can never find).
The success of administering your medical expertise will dictate what privilege’s you get from your interaction with each and every patient. If you hurt one, are are unsuccessful in administering aid – they’ll be mad, which damages your reputation level and the towns entire view on you. If you successfully do your job, this reputation level will increase, which can open up new social/dialogue options with those unique townsfolk.
On the adventuring side of things, you’ll be spending your time exploring the wilderness of Moonbury’s surrounding region, where you’ll scavenge for materials using either your axe, sickle and hammer (additionally a fishing rod is unlocked a bit further into the game) which will be used as ingredients for your variety of potions. In addition to this, you’ll have an encounter or two with a number of beasts, which throughout my experience, never proved too difficult to handle.
On the social side of things, I was pleasantly surprised with the depth and unique personalities of every resident of Moonbury. Initially I thought it would just be a faceless town of villagers you needed to win over as a collective, but as your trust level grows, so too does the depth of each end every character. Of the numerous villagers in town, there are six characters which can be romanced (three women and three men), all of which are well really well written and unique enough that I’m going to replay through the game to experience each avenue.
A nice change that I dislike from titles such as Stardew Valley is that the relationships get even better once you actually enter a relationship with them. there’s opportunities for unique dates you can go on at anytime, which cycle through various outings and events, offering a real sense of what an actual relationship should be like.
I was also impressed by how much thought went into the characters who you can’t romance. In most life simulators, these characters often act as more of a ‘filler’ to give a sense of life to the town, but a large portion of these characters in Potion Permit were by far my favorite inclusions in the game.
The depth, development and complexities in some of their stories was really unexpected, and made me want to explore each and every one of their complex lifes. Because of this depth, it was disappointing that despite gifts being included as an integral part of relationship building, there’s only 1 item that can be gifted in the game, and it’s the same for every character. It just seemed a bit impersonal, and stripped back the rich personalities of each character that were presented in their stories.
An unexpectant aspect of the game that I was appreciative of be in regards to coverage and exploration of rather sensitive and in depth topics (that on the surface level aren’t glaringly obvious). There’s deep-rooted messages relating to discrimination, generalisation, and the general fear of change, which are handled rather well. As touched on previously, the townsfolk of Moonbury almost treat you as a ‘witch’, and write off your use of modern medicine and aid. As you continue to progress through the story, you’ll slowly begin to earn their trust and switch their perspectives, (for some, even opening their eyes to their own prejudice).
The visuals and sound design throughout all of Potion Permit are phenomenal. The pixelated art style compliments everything presented, and is almost an expectation at this point for the genre. The amount of detail in these pixels is exceptional, and I surprisingly found myself exploring the nitty-gritty of every area of the map to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything. Complimenting all of this – the game audio is just exquisite. It’s exactly what you need from this style a game, with a subtle backing track that isn’t repetitive or invasive. Big tick of approval across the board for the sound design.
Now that I’ve got all of the niceties out of the way, it’s only fair to identify Potion Permit‘s biggest down-fall: it’s riddled with bugs. I admittedly first dismissed including this in the review because in my head I’d convinced myself Potion Permit was in early access, but this is in fact a full-fledged release, with a lot of issues that need to be fixed.
Throughout my time with the game, I had a handful of crashes, countless frame drops, random animations displaying, incorrect dialogue/text displaying and inaccurate (or blatantly false) notification prompts. I luckily hadn’t experienced some of the more severe bugs that exist in the game (such as romance options bugging out entirely), and I know these will all be tweaked, but the he game really just needed a little bit more time ironing out these issues,.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Potion Permit, and know as time passes, these bugs will be fixed, so for anyone interested in really unique, ‘cozy’, social simulator, look no further. It’s currently out now on all major platforms.
