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Button City

Button City is an adorable, heartwarming little journey that will enamour all who play it.
83%Game Brain Score
story, emotional
grinding, optimization
97% User Score Based on 236 reviews
Critic Score 69%Based on 25 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchXbox Series X|SPCPlaystation 5Mac OSXbox OneXboxSteam DeckWindowsPlayStation
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About

"Button City" is a charming adventure game where you help Fenn, a brave fox, save their local arcade from a greedy corporation. Navigate social challenges, compete in colorful mini-games, and form friendships to outwit the competition and save your beloved community space. This heartwarming tale of friendship and determination will have you cheering for our hero every step of the way.

Genres & Tags
Play Modes
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
Button City screenshot
+10
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97%
Audience ScoreBased on 236 reviews
story58 positive mentions
grinding10 negative mentions
  • Button City features a charming art style and a heartwarming story that resonates with players, evoking nostalgia and warmth.
  • The game includes a variety of fun mini-games and side quests that enhance the overall experience and provide engaging gameplay.
  • The characters are well-written and memorable, contributing to a delightful atmosphere filled with humor and emotional depth.
  • The gameplay can feel sluggish and repetitive, with excessive backtracking and fetch quests that detract from the overall enjoyment.
  • Some mini-games lack polish and can be frustrating, particularly the rhythm game, which has awkward controls.
  • There are several bugs and performance issues that can disrupt the experience, making it feel less refined than it could be.
  • story
    226 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story of "Button City" is a charming and heartfelt narrative centered around a shy fox navigating friendship and community in a vibrant town, with a strong focus on a local arcade. While the main storyline is engaging and emotional, it is complemented by numerous side quests and mini-games, though some players found the backtracking and fetch quests tedious. Overall, the game balances humor and deeper themes, making it a delightful experience for fans of slice-of-life storytelling, despite some execution flaws and bugs.

    • “A very simple, cute, and silly story about a skittish fox making new friends in a new town with a heavy focus on the local arcade as the place to be for kids.”
    • “The story is brilliant and you get to see bits of the characters' lives as the main story unfolds.”
    • “It's got a really colorful and vibrant art style, the writing is fun and makes the little animal characters pretty interesting and I'm curious to see where the story is heading next because it definitely heads into some directions you don't expect (like some real-life issue kind of stuff)!”
    • “I don't mind giving backstories, maybe showing how the characters are, but really the way this game tried to show story and give quests is just unbearable.”
    • “There were some moments that were quite funny and somewhat dark, but yet again they were all ruined by the sheer amount of lack of care in how the story was executed.”
    • “In the main story, however, the game teases a complex relationship between the main character and his mother, but doesn't expand on it at all.”
  • emotional
    68 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional aspect of "Button City" is characterized by its charming and heartfelt storytelling, which resonates deeply with players, often evoking nostalgia and personal reflections on childhood. Users appreciate the game's wholesome and cute aesthetics, alongside its ability to tackle real-life issues, resulting in moments that are both sweet and surprisingly poignant. Overall, the game is celebrated for its ability to create a warm, engaging experience that can elicit genuine emotional responses.

    • “A wonderful, wholesome, and cute game that hits right in the feels, and also captures the feeling of growing up and losing the magic of being young.”
    • “Did not expect to get emotional from this game, but I did.”
    • “Due to my own experiences in life, relating to many things in this game, the deeper connections truly resonated with me, resulting in a somewhat rare instance where a video game made me cry: growing up is never easy.”
  • graphics
    46 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game are characterized by a charming and colorful low-poly art style that evokes nostalgia while maintaining a unique aesthetic. Players appreciate the vibrant visuals and cute character designs, which contribute to an overall pleasant experience, despite some criticism regarding sluggish gameplay mechanics. The art style effectively balances simplicity with emotional depth, making it a standout feature of the game.

    • “Button City has colorful and charming low-poly aesthetics that hide some surprisingly deep moments behind its cartoonish nature.”
    • “The game features a very colorful low-poly art style along with a joyful soundtrack.”
    • “The aesthetics, while low-poly, are designed and color-schemed in a way to be soft and welcoming.”
    • “The low-poly graphics may not appeal to everyone, and various mechanics can make gameplay feel a bit on the slow side, but those who love the cute aesthetic are guaranteed to have fun helping Fennel settle into his new town of Button City with the bright colors and entertaining characters.”
    • “Graphics are very Animal Crossing.”
    • “The simplistic art style grabbed me as it reminded me of an Annapurna game.”
  • music
    43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in Button City is widely praised for its variety, charm, and ability to enhance the gameplay experience, with many reviewers noting its nostalgic and joyful qualities. While the soundtrack is described as phenomenal and well-complementing the game's colorful visuals and engaging characters, some players expressed disappointment over the inability to listen to it outside of gameplay and occasional glitches that cause the music to stop. Overall, the soundtrack contributes significantly to the game's lighthearted and chaotic atmosphere, making it a memorable aspect of the experience.

    • “The music is phenomenal and the humor is light and chaotic.”
    • “The soundtrack is excellent, and both the visuals and writing are charming; all together they always put a smile on your face.”
    • “Anytime you click on her door, Fennel says something like: "I better not go into mom's room, she's going to be home late from work." There is a glitch where if you hit restart a mini-game and return to the main game, all music stops entirely.”
    • “There were some bugs here and there (sometimes music stops after you finish an arcade game, or sometimes the screen just goes black, but this happened very rarely), but it wasn't anything that kept me from enjoying it.”
    • “The music (done by slime girls whose music you may have heard in Ooblets) complements the gameplay perfectly by matching the mood of each scene.”
  • gameplay
    38 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay in Button City is characterized by a charming and laid-back experience, featuring a mix of mini-games, fetch quests, and exploration through a unique stacked world mechanic. While the gameplay is simple and accessible, it suffers from issues like limited variety, backtracking, and some bugs, which can detract from the overall experience. However, the engaging story, delightful characters, and nostalgic aesthetic help to create an enjoyable atmosphere that resonates with players.

    • “Gameplay-wise, your time is split between traversing the town, through a neat little warp between bite-sized dioramas, and various mini-games.”
    • “Charming, genuinely funny, and surprisingly inventive gameplay.”
    • “But, genuinely, this game is fantastic; the characters are great, the story is sweet and emotional, the length of the game is fair for the price, and the gameplay is fun with a bunch of mini-games to play and some fetch quests that are enjoyable to complete.”
    • “This could have been remedied with some better AI, further balancing of the game mechanics, and unique maps you could unlock.”
    • “There's not any real difficulty to the gameplay, so the writing is what made me stick around, which is unusual for me.”
    • “Button City is a limited video game, but if the studio focuses on its strengths, it can surely create a world where the gameplay and the world are better synchronized.”
  • humor
    26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is characterized by charming, genuinely funny writing and light, chaotic moments that often evoke laughter and emotional resonance. While some darkly comedic elements are present, they can be overshadowed by execution issues in the story. Overall, the game features relatable characters and inventive gameplay that contribute to its vibrant and humorous atmosphere, making it a delightful experience for fans of quirky, lighthearted titles.

    • “Full of charm, genuinely funny writing, and the occasional emotionally heartwarming story beat as the cherry on top that ties it all together.”
    • “Button City is masterfully written, charming, and funny.”
    • “The writing is just so funny and upbeat while having some pretty incredible depictions of mental health issues and depression.”
  • grinding
    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be a mixed experience; while some achievements require tedious tasks like collecting items or completing minigames, many feel that the core gameplay allows for progression without excessive grinding. However, issues such as slow movement speed and repetitive fetch quests contribute to a sense of tedium, detracting from the overall enjoyment.

    • “Really the stuff I haven't finished either felt too grindy (achieving 10k buttons and drinking 10 sodas) or were dealing with a minigame I personally did not enjoy (beat all prisma beats songs in hard mode).”
    • “[full of annoying and intrusive bugs, arcade games get old quickly, backtracking and fetch quests don't land as 'retro' ideas, they're just tedious]”
    • “[movement speed can make some quests feel tedious, some plot beats can feel rushed]”
  • atmosphere
    7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's atmosphere is characterized by a warm, inviting quality enhanced by beautiful, memorable music, creating an adorable and immersive experience. While some players appreciate the magic in the writing and setting, performance issues and gameplay execution detract from the overall impact.

    • “While the execution and gameplay might not be perfect for some, it's the deliberately slow pace that draws you into the title's warm atmosphere and story.”
    • “Beautiful, atmospheric music that does not loop in your head, but is still memorable.”
    • “I love the atmosphere and the magic captured in the game’s writing and setting.”
    • “I love the atmosphere and the magic captured in the game’s writing and setting, but performance issues and weak minigames hold the title back.”
  • optimization
    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization has been criticized for performance issues, including soft locks, particularly on lower-end hardware like Intel HD Graphics 630. While the atmosphere and writing are praised, these technical shortcomings detract from the overall experience.

    • “Some performance issues and soft locks can happen if you are not careful.”
    • “I love the atmosphere and the magic captured in the game’s writing and setting, but performance issues and weak minigames hold the title back.”
    • “Performance-wise, I played on a desktop that uses Intel HD Graphics 630 with 16GB of RAM on an SSD.”
  • character development
    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development in the game is praised for its depth, with players noting that beneath the cute and whimsical exterior lies a surprisingly emotional storyline. The characters are well-crafted, featuring humorous motives and relatable solutions that enhance the overall narrative experience. This blend of charm and emotional resonance contributes to a rich and engaging character-driven story.

    • “Right out the gate, you might cross a connection with another game using a similar style, specifically one about animals; the animations and character designs are certainly inspired by this, but the similarities end there, as Button City poses itself as a very unassuming, quaint and cute world, with funny writing, cute character motives (and solutions!) and a surprisingly emotional storyline, hidden deep underneath its facade of adorable fluffiness.”
  • replayability
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game is considered decently replayable, offering enough content and variety to encourage players to return for multiple playthroughs.

    • “The game is decently replayable.”
    • “The game offers a good level of replayability.”
    • “I found the game to be quite replayable.”
    • “Decently replayable.”
    • “Decently replayable.”
  • stability
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game exhibits typical post-launch stability issues, with users reporting a couple of significant bugs that can halt progress or prevent gameplay entirely. While these glitches are not uncommon in newly released titles, they can disrupt the overall experience.

    • “However, as expected, just released games still have some bugs and glitches. I managed to find only two that either stop you from advancing without resetting the game or mini-game, or stop you from playing altogether—one before and one after playing the game.”
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69%Critics’ scoreBased on 25 critic reviews
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9h Median play time
9h Average play time
9-9h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 2 analyzed playthroughs
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