Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a cutesy adventure game about a turnip that has a desire to commit tax fraud, along with a multitude of other crimes, at every opportunity. It’s a silly game that has a great sense of humor and some simple gameplay mechanics.
The game begins with a good ol’ case of tax fraud. As far as openings go, it’s a pretty solid one. Mayor Onion decides that as punishment you must become his assistant, which is a pretty light sentence considering the normal penalty is years in prison. The job though is mainly completing fetch quests for the mayor and other vegetables around town.
The gameplay isn’t spectacular, the movement controls are a little clunkier than I would like and the combat is very basic. Only one item is bound to your controls at a time and switching between them is a bit cumbersome as well. Many of the buttons on the controller are unused too which makes this even more upsetting. A bit of refinement would’ve gone a long way in making Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion easier to play.
Comedically though, Turnip Boy does a good job at getting a reaction. His cavalier attitude to literally any important document he is handed – and just general disregard for others – is pretty great. There are quite a few meme references spread throughout, but they don’t ever feel overbearing.
The characters themselves are fun and the overall story of the game is interesting and kept me engaged. Without getting into spoilers though, it certainly takes quite the turn as it progresses.
It does seem like a lot of inspiration has been drawn from The Legend of Zelda games with the puzzle and level design. But drawing too much of a comparison between the two would overhype what you should expect from Turnip Boy. The design is very basic. None of the puzzles or areas are going to take long to figure out, and the entire game can be beaten in about two or three hours.
The gameplay itself is a bit mediocre, the comedy is good, and the story is engaging. All of those things together make it a decent experience, albeit a short one.
However, not all is rosey and I have to knock Turnip Boy down for the fact that the game crashed on me right towards the end of it; the only save point the game had generated was at the beginning of the game, with there being more content to replay than there was to finish. Yes, Turnip Boy is a short game so it’s easy to play through it all in one sitting, which means manual saving isn’t something I really had reason to do.
However, besides just losing progress, I also looked at the achievement list and discovered that many of the Xbox achievements that I should’ve unlocked didn’t; possibly another patch needs to be released to make Turnip Boy an enjoyable experience.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion isn’t a wholly bad game. It does have some great comedic moments and it’s a nice casual game to kill a couple hours. There is even a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reference for any fans of anime that would be interested in picking it up. However, the fact that nearly all of my data was lost because the game crashed, coupled with the achievements failing to unlock properly ruined the charm a bit.
The whole point of a game review is to try and decide whether a game is worth buying or not. I’d recommend waiting for a patch or two to get released before deciding to dive into Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion and possibly a sale if you’re looking to buy it for yourself. It’s very likely you could play through the game without it crashing, but I have to go off of my experience with it.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is available from the Xbox Store
