Forger Family

SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is a game based on the anime Spy x Family, adapted from Tatsuya Endo's manga. Unlike what the name suggests, the work does not only show action, but also a lot of adventure and comedy.

The anime itself makes you very comfortable, showing a light action plot without overdoing it. The game follows a slightly different line, which is to show the cuter and more lively side of Anya's life.

This means that the focus is on her and our goal is to build new memories with her family. It is really a title that "warms the heart" by playing with a character with such an adventurous and cute personality.

In this sense, she needs to be careful not to reveal her identity as a spy. Alongside her father, mother, and dog, Anya just wants to have fun, go on outings, eat sweets, play with toys, and create many memories to cherish, taking some of the focus away from the action of the anime.
 

More and more outings

The game starts with an opening, very reminiscent of the anime, introducing the main characters and some situations they go through in their everyday lives, involving missions, family entertainment, and even embarrassing situations.

With this and the game's focus being on the extremely lively little girl, we soon realize that Anya is very extroverted and has a strong personality, being determined and frenetic to carry out any minor action.

And this is proven based on the missions we receive in the game. The intention to create memories takes us to various environments, minigames, and cute stories, always with the aim of uniting and building more bonds within this family. And, speaking of that...

The "family" is not really a blood family. The synopsis of Tatsuya Endo's work tells us that the agent Twilight was called to start a mission in a rival country, and for that, he needs a good disguise. With that and his title of the government's best spy, he decides to assume a new identity in a family composed of a daughter, wife, and dog, being Anya, Yor, and Bond. There's just one problem: he needs to complete this "little" mission in just one week, becoming a good father and husband to seem convincing.

In this sense, the personalities of each character are very explored, but the story goes a bit unnoticed. I believe the game came as a specific part, life through Anya's eyes, and that wasn't really its initial purpose.

But, anyway, in my view, this could have been added at the beginning, as a story mode. A context for those who do not know the works but would like to play a relaxing, fun, and colorful game to understand what it is really about.

The good news is that the game seems to please its audience, as those who already know the story will notice that the moments Anya wants to remember are some that were shown in the anime episodes. Thus, there is a very close proximity between the two audiences, being a fun, easy, and, not ironically, familiar game to play.

However, in my view, it is a title that repeats itself many times in various aspects. I felt like I was part of the family's routine, but not in a totally good way, as it is a routine that is the same every day. I mean that in the first moments, I found the game to be the cutest thing in the universe, I was enchanted by all its features, but after two hours of gameplay, I found it tiring.

It is certain that it has several minigames and puzzles, but it is not enough. It seems like the days pass so that the weekend (when the outings happen) arrives. A great satire of real life.

Anyway, the minigames are simple to play and very cool. My favorite was dodgeball, precisely because it was challenging for me the first time and I got stressed with an NPC (yeah...). I wanted to keep playing to improve my performance, just as I got excited every time I needed to take a photograph.

Adjusting angle, framing, capturing funny expressions, playing with zoom out and zoom in, and finally taking a picture and keeping a nice moment in Anya's memory book. It's the most fun part for me! It's when we can see why the outings are planned and how the little girl gets happy when she gets a nice shot for her album.

Besides these issues, I missed some points in this routine, such as school. The girl attends classes, but there isn't something so elaborate there, just conversations with classmates and more photos for her diary. In my opinion, it was a little explored place that has the potential for her to gather information that helps in her main mission.

Living to remember

SPYxANYA: Operation Memories, as mentioned earlier, is a very cute and delicately crafted game. What I liked the most in the graphics analysis was how the traits are identical to those of the anime (to the point of feeling like I'm watching a new episode, not playing), and how colorful the game is.

In addition to using many colors, they are vibrant tones that express joy and various positive emotions. It is one of those works to appreciate the details while playing because that's exactly what I noticed all the time.

With that, I can say that the soundtrack was also very well done. There are various styles of music that fit very well with the moment Anya was experiencing, from outings to the minigames available in her diary.

Now, something I didn't like so much was the character's movement. The fact that it is in third person, the controls are forward, backward, and sideways, and you need to press the backspace key to reposition the camera and know your location, was something that bothered me a lot.

Although the environments are not large, from time to time I would hit a wall, or even lose track of the active mission because the direction was not very clear due to this control issue. I believe that if it were more fluid, and not stagnant, it would be much easier and would match better with this style of game.

Considering that the game requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM, an Intel Core i3-8350 processor, and a GTX 960 graphics card, and I played on a PC with 16GB of RAM, an Intel Core i5-9400F processor, and a GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, I didn't experience any bugs or glitches, the game ran perfectly.

We thank Bandai Namco Entertainment for the key of SPYxANYA: Operation Memories for PC.