Review: SPY×ANYA: Operation Memories (Nintendo Switch)
To quote the first volume in Spy x Family, “Everyone has a secret self they don’t show to other people. Not to friends…not to lovers…not even to family. They hide who they are and what they want behind lies and painted smiles. And thus the world…maintains its thin veneer of peace.” The aptly named Forger family is hiding secrets from each other to stay alive and save the world. Said family consists of husband Loid, a spy with the code name “Twilight,” wife Yor, an assassin with the code name “Thorn Princess,” daughter Anya, a telepath, and their pet dog Bond, who has precognition. Eden Academy is the school where Anya’s enrolled to get Loid closer to his mission’s goal. Now, with all this backstory out of the way, let’s delve more into the plot of SPYxANYA: Operation Memories.
After Anya’s given the assignment to finish a photo diary by the Housemaster, you’re thrust into a drawn-out and hand-holdy tutorial. Despite that, the game is pretty straightforward, so I don’t think the tutorial was necessary. The routine of the game is to go to school, talk to classmates and the Housemaster, take a picture of Anya, go home, talk to people, play minigames, then go to bed. Repeat this process until outing day (a day trip to a different location with the family), where you can participate in a raffle and take up to two to three pictures in your selected outing location, then repeat that process until you get all the pictures to complete the photo diary. Honestly, it can get monotonous if you try to speed run through the game like I did. But is it worth going through? Or is it a chore? Is SPYxANYA: Operation Memories worth it?
Pictures are obviously a big part of the gameplay due to the prime goal. It’s why you go on outings, to get new set locations for your pictures. Before each outing, you buy three items you can bring and use as props in the photos. Taking pictures is like a minigame. You adjust the focus, angle, and time when you snap the photo. During the photo session, you watch a small cutscene of sorts; the time to take the photo usually happens when Anya makes a funny face or gestures. If you take a picture with each prop you brought, you unlock a main photo to take a picture of. After you take pictures, you look through them and pick one to put in the photo diary. Also, before going on an outing, you can dress Anya, Loid, Yor, and Bond in outfits you can buy at the shop as they get unlocked or win them in a raffle.
The raffles get used on outing days before heading to the main outing location. You unlock more raffle boxes as you progress through taking the outing pictures. Each ticket is a drawing chance to win one of the listed outfits by each box; if you don’t win, you receive player points (PP for short) that you can use in the shop and buy outfits or props outright. You earn tickets by completing missions, which are basically in-game achievements. Usually, you’ll earn them by completing challenges in the minigames.
There are seventeen different minigames, such as card games and sports. My favorite would have to be “Anya at School.” It’s a stop-and-go type of game where you press ‘A’ rapidly to start taking notes and try to be the first person to raise your hand (by flicking up the left analog stick) when Housemaster Henerson asks a question; you stop taking notes to listen when he turns to speak to the class. Controls, at times, feel delayed regarding the more frantic minigames, and some would improve if more rhythm-based (specifically, “Cooking with Yor” and “Training with Yor.”) The minigames in the “P-Two Missions” section particularly stuck out as parodies of existing games, “Tag with P2” is a Pac-Man parody, but “P2 Security Check” not only plays like Mappy, but the music sounds like Mappy. I did try out the two-player mode with the minigames, but they weren’t that fun, and most were merely playing the same game side by side.
The central locations are Eden Academy, Home, and ten different outing places. In the academy, you can chat with Becky, Anya’s best friend, Damian, her rival of sorts, and Housemaster Henderson. At home, you can chat with her ‘parents’ (sometimes), Yuri, Yor’s younger brother, and Fiona Frost, a spy who belongs to the same organization as Loid. By talking to people, you level up your friendship with them; once complete, this leads to a cutscene where you get an event CG picture to the gallery. You can also talk to Emile and Ewen, Damian’s two friends; however, they don’t have the same ‘level up’ feature, providing only dialogue and an achievement if you talk to them enough. Something great about the dialogue is the vocals by the Japanese VAs from the anime!
A cute but repetitive title that can become old fast if played at length, this is one of those slice-of-life games to pick up and play while waiting to do something else. I appreciate that it captured the spirit of the series. But I wish there was more to it, especially priced at $49.99 ($69.99 with the DLC outfits). I also experienced framerate drops, noticed clipping and an asset disappearing, got an error that closed the game, and once had to close it myself because it froze, but these could get fixed with patches. Regardless, I’d wait until it goes on sale and can’t easily recommend it to others who don’t know the source material. Overall, SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is a game for fans of the anime or manga it’s based on, but not for anyone else.
