Vroom in the Night Sky (Switch eShop) Review

Vroom in the Night Sky is a strange little game. It released as a launch title on the Switch, alongside a slew of other titles, but unfortunately failed to capture the attention of many – leaving it to be quickly forgotten and abandoned. What happened exactly?

The premise presented to the player is definitely a charming one. Like popular franchises such as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Madoka Magica, and a whole lot of other anime out there (and I mean a lot) – you take on the role of a ‘Magical Girl’.

Not just any Magical Girl, but a Magical Girl on a moped. Uh, yeah! Sign me up! So you’ve got Magical Girls, tiny motorbikes – what next? Well, as the title quite literally implies, you ‘vroom in the night sky’. To be more specific, you drive through giant rings while performing different stunts and tricks to rack up as many points as you can.

The game definitely has its highs. Stacking points for playing well feels satisfying, and when the game isn’t being too floaty, zooming around at high speed with the game’s cool use of HD Rumble can be thrilling for sure. However, the biggest problem Vroom in the Night Sky suffers is that it feels a little too empty and uninspired for comfort. There’s something there – and it’s something that could’ve been really cool, but it winds up falling short of the mark in so many ways.

Just to get this out of the way – the translation is ghastly. It’s understandable why, considering that this game was developed by a very small indie studio in Japan, but it’s something that has to be acknowledged, because it does hurt the overall experience. When attempting to learn how to play with the game’s Driving School mode, I had no clue what some of the instructions were trying to tell me to do. For a couple of the lessons, it was pure guesswork that got me to learn what the game was trying to otherwise convey.

Every single stage in the game is void of life. Vast stretches of grass feel barren and areas such as towns or factories appear dull and grey. There’s one particularly odd level set above the clouds, which features planes flying around in flocks… Like birds. It surprises me that nobody on the team thought maybe planes behaving like birds weren’t a good idea. It ends up being immersion breaking in a way that I haven’t experienced from a game in a long time.

The concepts behind these levels are fine, but it’s clear they all needed much more time to cook. Having NPCs like animals or people sprinkled throughout would’ve helped so much in making the game feel just a little more alive. If the excuse that there aren’t any of those is simply because the game is set during the night time – then it would’ve been as equally effective to focus on environmental flair, but it doesn’t. It’s unfortunate too, because the music can be pretty catchy!

All the blank space causes the gameplay to suffer. There’s nothing to encourage the player to pull off high-scoring dangerous stunts like the game wants, and there’s nothing to entice the player into returning to each level to get better. In-game achievements and vehicles you can unlock in the store attempt this, but it just doesn’t work. Instead of thinking “I really want to come back to these levels because they’re a lot fun”, I wound up feeling something along the lines of “I guess I’ll pick a random level to grind some gems so I can afford a faster vehicle, because there’s nothing else I can do in this game”.

I believe Poisoft is capable of creating something much better. It’s such a shame. What’s presented here isn’t awful, but it’s not necessarily good either. Giving the game more time to develop would have benefitted it greatly. In its current state, Vroom in the Night Sky feels more like an alpha build rather than a full release.