I picked Onogoro up because it sounded like a short-ish VR puzzle game with lots of exploration that would help train my VR legs and practice overcoming my motion sickness in VR. This game was great for that purpose and after finishing it, I can definitely tell a difference in my tolerance. But beyond that, while I don't think the game is amazing, it's pretty good. My initial concern was that it looked like it was just some waifu fan service game, but the reviews were really good, especially for the puzzles and while I don't often play pure—or even primarily—puzzle games, I do like a good puzzle here and there, so I was willing to give it a chance and was quite pleased.

The basic premise of Onogoro is that you're a summoned ghostly entity assisting Haru, a shrine maiden, who in addition to be a multi-limb amputee, is chained to a magic "quelling stone" (which is incredibly anime). Together, you and Haru must navigate a fantastical steampunk Japanese island, fighting enemies called 'kenzoku' and 'kami' while solving numerous puzzles, with an emphasis on the latter. You are armed with two "celestial weapons" which look like steampunk guns that can harness different forms of ki—wind, earth, and fire—as well as latch onto the quelling stone and levitate Haru around the map. The different elements of ki match certain objects you can manipulate. Further, each of the kenzoku can only be beaten by shots of ki matching their element. As you proceed through the game and defeat each of the bosses, the incensed kami, you will recover one of Haru's missing limbs, her eye, leg, arm, heart, and bow, which was very weird but provided a visual sense of progression.

I thought the gameplay was generally pretty good. This isn't a combat-intensive game by any means. The bulk of the game is puzzle-solving and for the most part, fighting the enemies is more about figuring out how to beat them, often by uncovering the right element of ki stone that can be used to destroy them. Otherwise you're using ki to interact with various items (windmills with wind ki, lanterns with fire ki, etc) or having Haru activate various shrines and tools to solve the various puzzles. I found the puzzle difficulty was generally in a good place. The game gradually introduces you to increasing challenges and for the most part, I didn't feel like the solutions were too hard or too easy. If anything, they're probably a little on the hard side, but should be for a dedicated Puzzle game. The game is divided into several longer chapters—each traveling to different sectors of Onogoro island—that are divided into sub-chapters that make up the various levels. While there's some variation in length, the levels seemed to average around 10-20 minutes each. At the end of each chapter is a boss fight against an incensed kami which was generally still puzzle-like, even if there was a greater emphasis on avoiding damage and being quicker.

The story was very basic and a little cliché, despite having some rather bizarre elements. There's a ton of lore that Haru exposits throughout the levels and gives overly long speeches about before and after levels, but honestly it's not very interesting or unique lore. While this wasn't a huge deal, even though I don't like skipping story in most any games, it went on so long at times I seriously considered it. There's some mild silly fan servicey stuff, like Haru is overly flattering and is constantly thanking you for helping her. She's not quite flirtatious, but is lowkey obsessed with you. The game also loves to make you hold hands with her, because ya know, it's totally necessary to healing her or completing every level. But while I poke fun, in my opinion, it honestly wasn't too overboard and she never feels sexualized. Beyond that, while she talks way too much and has a tendency to rant a lot, she did come to be a rather endearing character by the end, despite the cliché personality you'd find in hundreds of other anime girls. I spent most of the game feeling like the story and characters were kind of eye-rolly, but at the end when I had to tell Haru goodbye, it was actually pretty sad. So I suppose she did win me over eventually.

I don't have too many significant complaints, but there are a few. For one, the pacing is a bit odd. Early missions are super simplistic and over in a few minutes, which makes sense given they're semi-tutorials. But then some later missions are almost 5 or 6 times as long. Further, especially later in the game, while it's good the puzzles get more complex, some of the solutions felt a lot jankier than it seemed like they should've, relying on fairly precise and quick timing and aiming, which detracted from the otherwise heavy "solving" focus over reflexes and skill. Also, at the end of the game, there's a boss rush in which you fight every boss in the game over again, each being a bit stronger or having additional elements from the first time. It felt really repetitive and like padding that didn't add much to the game. Lastly, as I said, a lot of the story scenes of Haru just ranting about basically nothing went on way too long, especially the ones at the beginning and end of missions where you can't really do anything but just stand there and listen.

As I said, I played this primarily to train my VR motion sickness tolerance. The game was pretty much perfect for this purpose. First, it's a game that definitely does trigger some motion sickness, so that's good for that goal. But second, the levels were at most about 30 minutes long, which is about the max I could go without triggering some wooziness and since most were about 15 minutes, I got to push myself to my limits over and over before stopping each session, while still making good progress. After getting back to some Resident Evil 4 VR afterward, which was too much for me previously, I can tell a huge difference already so I'm quite pleased with that. However, even beyond that practical purpose, I found the game pretty fun. The puzzles felt clever and while the story was mostly a miss, I ended up enjoying hanging out with Haru. If you don't like puzzle games, I would stay away from this game, but for what it is, Tale of Onogoro is a pretty good game.