There are many beloved (children’s) shows across the world that many North Americans do not know about. Upin & Ipin is a hit children’s show in Malaysia and follows the adventures of the titular twins. Given that there are over 700 episodes, it is surprising that the show had not been adapted into a full-fledged video game beforehand. Constant camera issues aside, the production value, voice acting, quests, and minigames in Upin & Ipin Universe showcase a great adaptation of the show into a life-simulation game to help other characters in the village while letting players enjoy leisurely time controlling the young twin boys.
Upin & Ipin Universe
Developer: Les’ Copaque and Streamline Studios
Price: $56.99 CAD
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam (reviewed)
The writer was provided a Steam code for review.
As a South Asian game journalist, I try my best to invest myself in any and all games from South Asian developers across the world, especially games with turban representation like this game. The Upin & Ipin series was very well-known to me, but I had not gotten around to watching it. I saw it on Netflix, with more than a dozen seasons available to watch, and the series has a diverse cast of characters from Malaysia, Indonesia, and India, to name a few, which had me looking forward to the game itself.
After a tutorial segment, I was blown away by Upin & Ipin Universe’s scale. The Kampung Durian Runtah is a sort of village the characters live in, and the map is expansive and detailed to explore. It was bewildering to me that it was one of the best-looking maps I had seen in a game, as if it came from a detailed picture book. You will be tasked to complete quests, which can involve minigames like cooking, fishing, bug catching, and gathering resources for other characters.
Upin & Ipin Universe’s Culture, Cuisine, and Fun Interrupted by Frustration
Games like Disney Dreamlight Valley have cooking as a minigame, but require you to just place the correct ingredients together to make a recipe. Where Universe differs is that the cooking minigame is similar to Overcooked. You have to control the twins, bring ingredients to their sister or grandmother to chop, tap the buttons correctly, and set each finished product on the table to combine them. Some of these dishes I knew, but so many recipes were all new to me. South Asian cuisine is so incredibly vast, and the game is an excellent showcase of many different types of dishes with distinct procedures and ingredients.
Games like Thirsty Suitors and Venba put South Asian cooking at the forefront, and Universe adds even more dishes to my list of South Asian dishes I want to try in real life. (I found it funny that Fried Chicken is one of the recipes, where ingredients are not used as resources.)
Outside of fishing, which is in many games nowadays as a minigame, Universe has gasing. Gasing is a traditional Malaysian spinning top game. You can choose different tops, all with different stats, colours, and dish them out against other characters. Since Upin & Ipin are always together, these gasing fights are two against one, which means they win more than they lose, but it adds to the hilarity of the game itself.
Outside of quests, there is also gardening, remote control car driving, and filling up your catalogue with different discoveries of insects, plants, fish, collectible posters from different seasons, and more. It’s a pleasant game, where the stakes are small, such as cooking a chilli bun to feed to angry geese, so that you can get them out of the area; but the production value is incredibly high, such as every voice line having both English and Malay recordings. Each activity you do in the game will pass the time, so by nighttime, you’ll have to go to bed because you are only five years old.
The game’s continuous problem is the finicky camera. Getting out of minigames, into minigames, strolling or running around the Kampung does irritate the camera, but the game’s strength lies in its great adaptation of the series, enamouring me to a hit show that is unapologetic in its embrace of Malaysian culture, cuisine, and aesthetics.
The Final Word
Upin & Ipin Universe is a strong first step in adapting the series into a video game, and its open world has quite a bit of charm for someone like me, not very savvy about the series. The camera is a constant mess, but if you do continue to power through that major stumbling block, there is a lot to enjoy from this game. Character models are cute, and aspects like the crops growing after watering them or little gestures like how Upin/Ipin take off their sandals when getting into the home are little joys. A lot of heart, and reminds me of those early 2000s game adaptations of other 3D cartoons and animated films, in the best possible way.
MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
