Totally Reliable Delivery Service Switch Review

Have you ever been disappointed with a delivery? Maybe it was damaged upon arrival, or it possibly was delivered to the wrong address. There are so many scenarios where packages do not make it as expected, and Totally Reliable Delivery Service is a game specifically about the hardships of this activity. We’re Five Games and tinyBuild Games have worked hard to create this silly multiplayer simulation game, but is this worth your time and money? There is only one way to find out.

There is not much of a story to Totally Reliable Delivery Service. You and up to three friends are tasked with delivering packages for an assortment of bizarre individuals through any means necessary.

The game introduces you as a new recruit for the Totally Reliable Delivery Service company, and you are immediately tasked with delivering a box to a spot just a couple meters away. Simple enough. But from that point, the game is a sandbox and nothing is really expected of you but to have fun and try delivering packages to all kinds of weird places, if you so choose.

And that’s basically it.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service is an open-world interactive sandbox, similar to that of Goat Simulator in regards to how much you are able to do. Since the theme of the game is delivering packages, you are mostly expected to find points in the game where you can pick up a package, and then you are either given a damage percentage on the package or a timer as to how long it takes to delivery the package. In those cases, the closer to 100% the package is, the more money you will receive, and the faster you complete the task, well… the more money you will receive.

Money really serves no purpose but to unlock more stuff. It’s not like you pocket the money and choose how to spend it, but rather it serves as a point system where earning a certain amount of money will unlock new clothes, accessories, vehicles, etc. It’s an interesting system, but I would have personally preferred a store to spend my hard earned money in.

Although it is an open sandbox like Goat Simulator, it plays a whole lot like Gang Beasts and Human Fall Flat. Your character is rather hard to control, which is part of the hilarity. You grab with the triggers, raise your arms with the bumpers, and jump and dive with the face buttons. You can even run in this game by pressing in the left trigger, which really helps with some of the early deliveries that do not require vehicles.

Sadly, driving is a nightmare in the game. Like with the regular avatar movements, it is rather difficult to control the various vehicles, particularly the flying ones. I would not have minded this so much if the vehicles were optional, but there are quite a few delivery missions that require you to use things like helicopters to deliver packages and those missions are infuriating. For completionists, this may be a turn-off, since the wonky nature of the game and its controls make it incredibly hard to complete mundane tasks, lone enough complicated ones.

At its core, though, Totally Reliable Delivery Service is about having fun. The controls are complicated and clunky to make you and your friends laugh, and it genuinely works. I played with my family during this COVID-19 quarantine, and my children were in tears from constant laughter. My wife, who does not normally enjoy games, loved Totally Reliable Delivery Service and its wackiness. And my father, who normally likes action and horror games, found this to be loads of fun and could not wait to play more.

Although there are tasks to be done and things to unlock, Totally Reliable Delivery Service is at its best when you are playing with friends and just goofing around. The multiplayer is a riot, and I would highly recommend the game for this alone, especially if you can enjoy local splitscreen with family and friends.

Not that it is necessary, but the game also provides Achievements for those who enjoy checking off lists of things to do. There are even a few secrets hidden around the massive map to discover.

When it comes to the soundtrack for Totally Reliable Delivery Service, there is absolutely nothing to write home about. It is about as basic as possible, and often times, there is no music at all (Or at least it is quite forgettable).

However, the sound effects are fantastic and hilarious, adding so much more fun to the gameplay. When certain packages explode and send your character soaring into the air, every bit of sound that went into each part of that process just made the experience that much funnier. I love how each of the vehicle’s engines putter and struggle, which just adds to the theme of the game’s quirkiness. It really lends an extra layer of silliness to a game that is already chock full of it.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service is quite cute by design. The characters look hilarious, especially their bulging and bouncy booties as you jump and flop around. The various vehicles look and feel like toys, which fit perfectly in this game world, and the many interactive areas in the map look and feel great and compliment the design and feel of the game.

Sadly, though, performance issues were pretty rampant, especially in splitscreen multiplayer, which is common in these types of games. I cannot complain too much, as these issues often created some of the most amusing moments I had in the game, but there were plenty of times when it stuttered heavily and loading certain textures took a lot longer than they should have. But like Goat Simulator, this barely damages the game, due to the fact that it feels like it is supposed to be this way. You know, like a feature.

Despite, these issues do exist, whether you enjoy them in these types of games or not.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service will run you $14.99, which I think is a very reasonable price. $9.99 may have been the sweeter price point, but I do believe that the asking price is justified and quite worth it. You get a massive sandbox to explore and play around on, both in solo play and up to 4-player simultaneously, online or locally.

There are also tons of unlocks, achievements to obtain, and secrets to find. The amount of gameplay you will get out of Totally Reliable Delivery Service depends solely on you, but it is quite easy to get lost in the gameplay and spend hours in an entertaining session with family or friends.

And that is its strongest selling point. If you have people to play this with, the value increases tremendously, but if you are planning to play solo, this may grow stale quickly and there will not be a whole lot of reason to come back. The actual gameplay may be about delivering packages, but Totally Reliable’s main purpose is to deliver smiles.

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Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review provided by Nintendo Link
Developer: We’re Five Games
Publisher: tinyBuild Games
Release Date: April 1, 2020
Price: $14.99, £13.49, €14,99
Game Size: 3.4GB