Trash Goblin Review (Switch)

From Trash to Treasure: An Autobiography on Silver City’s Favorite Goblin

You have no idea how excited I was when I heard that Trash Goblin was coming to consoles. I knew about this game since it was first released and I was sure that I would enjoy it. I hoped that it would eventually make its way to consoles, as every time it appeared in a gaming showcase it made me want to play this game, and guess what. It has! Now, after I played it, is Trash Goblin worth getting? And is it worth picking up the console version?

In Trash Goblin you play a, well, goblin. You don’t have a cannon name, though your goblin Aunt has a cute little nickname for you, so you’re basically playing as yourself. Anyway, instead of going back to your birthplace and getting into the line of work that I assume goblins are in, or at least where your goblin family worked and lived at, you decide to open up your own business. And luckily, you have the perfect connections to do just that without any expenses. It turns out that you lived with and were taken care of by a human named Aimon. Aimon is an antiquer who runs an antique shop upstairs and, what do you know, there’s an empty storefront on the ground floor (which also doubles as your bedroom). The perfect place to become a goblin trinketeer in the hustle and bustle of Silver City! Aimon even gives you some pointers so you know what you’re doing (now that I think about it, antiquers and trinketeers do overlap quite a lot). Not to mention that your Aunty is a delver and is very supportive of your endeavor. She sends you the very sacks that you’ll be getting your trinkets from. Let’s just keep it from our customers that we got these trinkets from the trash and, in some cases, is actually their own trash that they’re rebuying.

As you slowly build up your business that is all profit, upgrade your tools, and do some decorating; there is a story here. First of all, there are small storylines with the unique, named customers. The majority are all pretty short, but they do give you a peek into what’s happening outside of your shop, hear their stories about what they’re doing or what’s happening in their life, and just gives you some fun characters to talk to while you’re working towards progressing to the next main story event. And talking about the main story, there is actually one here! It’s not mentioned other than a vague and slightly ominous “the fate of the city can wait” in the game’s recent trailer and trying to talk about it gets very spoiler-y very fast. Let’s just say that it was totally unintended, it started with a seemingly innocent antique armoire, though you guys really should have realized it much sooner, and it definitely would have spelled disaster if it wasn’t for it being dealt with just in the nick of time. While Aimon was unlucky that it affected them throughout, at least you were lucky enough that it didn’t affect you even though its evil essence was seeping heavily downstairs. Maybe it was a good idea to have your bed in front of the customer window in a seemingly uncomfortable spot after all.

I liked the main story and the character stories here. Both do a good job in sliding into the gameplay loop without disrupting it too much as, after all, it’s basically just more talkative customers. I liked how the main story starts with something that is seemingly innocent and you’re just helping Aimon with their business, but then it just slowly unfolds and progressively gets worse. It has a really nice build up, I like the changes that you can observe, and man it could have been really bad not only for Silver City but for their world. I’m still surprised it took the characters a long time to figure it out, especially since I could swear a character mentions the last time the threat (trying not to spoil it here haha) was at large before the finale. Granted, maybe it’s due to the personalities of the characters, maybe no one thinks there is any way for the threat to come back, and you are pretty focused on running your business. Plus, the symptoms do slowly ramp up, starting as simply not having a good night’s sleep, and you need the full picture to really diagnose what was happening.

I also liked the character stories here too. A lot of them are pretty short and do feel they could have had another visit or two, but I did enjoy talking to the named customers and hearing their stories. They are all quite interesting and it was nice to hear how the world of Trash Goblin is like outside of your humble shop. Plus, you get some backstory on the character you’re playing as sometimes. I definitely do have my favorite named customers, which is based on both their character story, personality, and design. Like, Donoval is an obvious answer and from what I can tell ends up being everyone’s favorite. Donoval is the kind of character that just builds upon himself with every visit as you start out thinking “he’s nice but I don’t see why everyone loves him” to him growing on you so much you see his charm and you become one of his fans. I definitely was pretty sad when he stopped visiting. Milly was also my favorite, and would be my top pick if I had to pick any character other than Donoval, as I really liked her and her story. I would name other named customers that I really liked, but I realized I would be naming like five more haha.

Anyway yeah, my only complaint is that a lot of their last visits didn’t really feel like it was their last visit. There are a few that do give you a good signal that it is their last visit, but a lot of them you won’t really know it was their last visit until they just stop showing up. I swear it isn’t just because I miss seeing a lot of them and wish they visited again, but that it does feel like the last conversation was open-ended enough that they would come back.

Last, but not least, the writing style was nice here as well. The game is nicely written as it strikes a good balance between showing the character’s personality, including any information like their own lives or the game’s lore, and even having jokes. Some characters even have their own unique way of talking that sets them apart even more. It also does well with having short, but sweet, dialogue with the occasional slightly longer lines that flows pretty well. It also flows pretty well into going from their character storyline to what they want to order from you. Of course, the humor here won’t be for everyone, but there are some really good jokes here that got me. Overall, it was a delight to read the dialogue here and it didn’t fail to make me smile.

Okay, last thing I swear, but one thing I was worried about was the dialogue would be hard to read. The footage I was seeing, and even a screenshot on the eshop listing, had white text on a tan background; but when I went into the game it was fine as it has been switched to black text on a tan background which definitely helped in making it easier to read.

Now onto the gameplay, which I have a feeling is going to be a bit long. Trash Goblin has a pretty nice gameplay loop here and I think that’s how I’m going to structure this. When you first start out, you just have your basics and no trinkets, but don’t worry it’s actually pretty easy to get the hang of. The vast majority of the game takes place at your humble shop where you’ll be switching between the four walls that host the various actions that you can do. Let’s start at the Workbench where you’ll be doing, well, all of your trinketeer work at. First up, you need to get your trinkets and to do that, all you have to do is bring the salvage sack to your workmat and hit it with your chisel. You’ll get a random trinket pulled from the unlocked trinket pool, but since you’re totally not getting these trinkets from the trash you do need to first do some major cleaning. First up is the chipping minigame where you’ll be chipping away all the big gunk, or cruft, that’s surrounding the trinket. This is represented by blocks, with each trinket having its own block design. All you have to do is hit the blocks with your chisel, making sure to break away all the gunk from the chalk trinket blocks. Don’t worry, you can’t break the trinket. There are a handful of different block types representing the material and how easy it is to break. There’s even some special blocks like the geode looking block where you can only break it on one side. Once you break all the blocks representing the gunk and only have the chalk trinket blocks, it will reveal what you got.

Once you unearth the trinket, you can then clean it up the rest of the way with your soaped up sponge. Technically, you don’t have to clean every trinket, but it’s recommended and best to do. Anyway, all you have to do is use the sponge over the dirt on the trinket and scrub away. You can see how much left you need to clean and thankfully you just need to clean the majority of the item and it’ll count as fully cleaned. Cleaning will not only help when you’re selling the trinket, but also lets you upcycle it. Upcycling basically lets you attach trinkets together and all trinkets have at least one socket that a valid matching trinket can attach to. There are trinkets that do match that you can make a complete item, like getting all the plushie pieces to upcycle it to a full plushie, but you can just connect any trinket that’s valid. There are some trinkets that strictly go with their series, but you can make some crazy creations if you want to. Upcycling is pretty limited as you only have the base upcycler tool, but as you progress you’ll be able to do more and more. There’s also the wash basin which you can put a trinket in to clean overnight in exchange of a small fee, which is very helpful. Once you’re done, you can keep the trinket on the workbench or put it in your inventory.

Of course, you’ll be selling all the various trinkets and to do that, you’ll be at the Customer Desk or Storefront (whichever one you want to call it). This is where you’ll be interacting with your customers who will come in every so often and ring the bell to signal you that they’re there (and, well, the icon on the bottom will also change to reflect it too). During the main story, you’ll either get stranger customers or named customers. They both are basically the same in terms of selling trinkets other than being able to dismiss named characters and summon them again once it’s done. Anyway, once a customer is waiting, you just need to talk to them and they’ll tell you what trinket they want and what state. Some won’t mind either way, but some will specify if they want it cleaned or have something attached to it. The customer will wait for you so you can do Workbench actions if you want or need to, like if you don’t have the trinket but want to see if you’ll get it in a couple tries. You can dismiss a customer so it’s open for the next one to come in or sell their desired trinket to them. You can choose to have them pay the full price or give them the nice discounted price. Why would you do the latter? Well, there is a reputation system here with the five different species that’ll come in as customers. The discounted price will raise your reputation with them the most and, in turn, you’ll get a higher chance of getting a tip the higher your reputation level is with the species the customer is. It may not be much at the start, but man they tip big towards the end and sometimes I had tips bigger than the gold I lost through giving them a discount. Oh, and also remember how I said it’s best to always clean your trinkets? Well, you actually get a cleaning bonus! Once you sell the item you’ll see the receipt for the transaction and all you have to do is drag the coin bag that the customers leave behind to your stash to get the gold added to your gold balance.

So, what do we do with all this gold? Well, upgrades of course! And maybe some decorations if there’s some left over. Turning to the stairwell will let you upgrade your tools to make them more efficient and each wall has its own set of upgrades you can buy. Which can be just decorative or help you out like giving you more stash space, more ways to sell items, or giving you more room to work. There is also a retrieval service which will get a specific trinket per day for you if you don’t want to try getting it with the sacks, for a fee which depends on what trinket it is.

And finally, the last wall is where your bed is. It only hosts your bed at first, but as you progress there are two other actions here. However, first I have to talk about a mechanic I haven’t mentioned yet. Time. You have a limited amount of time per day, six slots to be specific, and time progresses when you do a Workbench action. This does have you choose what you want to do, stops you from just doing whatever and everything, and gives you a good sense of time passing as you work. Once you use up all of your slots, it’s time to go to bed, progress to the next day, and get a little overview of all you did.

There are two other things you can do here, though. You can brew up some coffee, with a fee of course, to get one extra time slot per day. There’s also the map which, if it’s market day, you can use some half your time slots and some gold to travel to another district. Some story progression is done by traveling to a different district (which you’ll know through dialogue or from the exclamation mark), but this is mainly so you can take all the trinkets you can fit in your stash and sell them at the new location like a little pop-up store. You’ll get a bunch of customers, which I think is based on how many trinkets you bring with a dash of randomization, and is guaranteed to pick one of the random trinkets in your stash. This can bring in a ton of money if you not only fill up your stash but upcycle as many trinkets as you can.

Oh and there is an order tracker, which tracks the quest orders from named characters and the order that’s at the window currently. This is nice just in case you forgot what they wanted, but it even is more helpful than you think as it not only will show you if you have the trinket but also clicking on the magnifying glass beside the request will highlight the trinket if you have it. It may not seem useless in the beginning, but once you upgrade your stash you do get to a certain point where you can easily overlook the trinket icon.

There are a lot of optional things that you can do here. There are a lot of different trinkets in the game and you won’t be able to find them all just playing through the main story. Especially since a good chunk doesn’t become available in the random trinket pool until you finish the main story. You can aim to find all the different trinkets and even complete the Trinket-pedia which tracks if you found it through the sacks, if you cleaned it, upcycled it, and if you sold it. You can aim to fully upcycle trinket pieces to its fully completed trinket form. You can aim to get max reputation with every species. You can customize your shop’s walls and surfaces (and also your bed area) using the different designs available (most of which you do need to buy but some are default designs or unlocked when you get max reputation). There are a couple post-game character quests that you can do as well and actually a good amount of things get unlocked once you finish the main story quest.

There are also upgrades that I consider completely optional or semi optional depending on how you play. Like there are some upgrades to your shop that are purely for decoration purposes like shelves or a hanging plant. There are some upgrades that do serve a purpose, but are optional to get or upgrade. This mainly just depends on how you end up playing and what you feel like upgrading. Like you don’t have to upgrade your storage to max (I honestly found my sweet spot and didn’t fully upgrade it until the post-game), the display mat is optional to get, and I honestly found the pay-what-you-can box to be pretty useless as it just gives you pennies so I didn’t upgrade that at all (personally I’d rather just save up the trinkets, upcycle them, then go out to get a guaranteed base price sell at a different district). You can also just simply keep playing the game just because.

I quite enjoyed the gameplay here. While I have previously played and enjoyed games where you clean objects, I was still a bit worried I wouldn’t like this one. Nonetheless, I was pretty convinced that I would enjoy playing Trash Goblin and, well, I did! I really enjoyed the gameplay loop here, the small decisions you can make, and the progression. I liked the chipping minigame, it was easy to get the hang of but still complex enough that you can’t just go ham on it and man was it so satisfying once you completely chipped away all the gunk blocks. It’s even more satisfying if you manage to find that one block that takes away a whole chunk of blocks (since it’s not connected to the whole block anymore) or even every non-trinket block. I also just liked how every trinket had its own trinket block design. I was actually able to tell if I was chipping away at a new trinket and even if it was, say, a frog plushie leg just based on the layout of the blocks. There is also the shadow that shows you what you’re getting, but it didn’t always appear for me. The cleaning minigame was also nice and satisfying and I liked the wash basin being there for when you just don’t want to clean a trinket that seems like it would be a bit of a pain or you just didn’t have time to clean it but you want to still have it cleaned by tomorrow. The upcycling can get in your way at times, but man did I not only like being able to put together a whole piece when I got all the trinket parts, but also just making my own crazy creations.

Oh, and I definitely appreciate being able to choose press, hover, or hold mode for chipping or cleaning. It is especially helpful on consoles as it does make things easier. Personally, I put cleaning on hover so I didn’t have to hold down the button and had chipping on hold which is helpful before you pick up the different chisel types.

Selling the trinkets was also nicely done as it lets you decide what to do. You can see if you’ll unearth the trinket they want or send them away. You can sell the trinket to them or keep it whether it’s because you’re saving it to upcycle it into its fully put together form or because you just like it and you’re displaying it at your Workbench. You can decide to give a customer a discount to raise your reputation higher or not if you need the money. Or give the discount until it’s maxed out so you have a high chance of getting a big tip. I also personally had a policy where I was going to take full price if I travelled to another district as it did help me make back the money I spent for progression purchases. It was also nice having a way to just order a trinket if you want a specific one but don’t want to wait until the RNG is in your favor (and hopefully it doesn’t give you one right after you order it) and I think the price is more-or-less fair for the convenience. And thank goodness you can have named customers wait until they’re summoned so you can still get customers. You can even close your shop if you want to if you just don’t want to deal with a customer coming in. I also definitely liked how Trash Goblin let you go at your own pace, while also giving you some friction so it’s not totally easy. I don’t know what I’d do if the clock was continuous, instead of being action based, as cleaning specially can be slow going with the base sponge. And it was quite nice that customers don’t leave, even if you progress to the next day, until you dismiss them. I guess what I’m saying is that it balances the cozy and challenging elements really well, giving you that relaxing gameplay while also making sure it’s not too easy. Which does help the game stay fresh and engaging as you play.

The progression was also handled pretty well. You start out with the basic tools, giving you room to learn the mechanics on the go, and as you progress you get better tools to make everything more efficient. It also doubles as making you feel like you’re getting better at the job as time goes on. By the time your tools are fully upgraded, you’re just a pro trinketeer where nothing can get in your way.

I will say that the game can feel like it’s getting old if you’re playing it for too long, but just taking a break and going back to it later can help refresh you. I know it did for me. So yeah, Trash Goblin’s gameplay is indeed cozy and relaxing. While I am a bit bummed that this ended up not having touch screen controls, I’m pretty glad I got it for the Switch since I was able to play Trash Goblin anywhere. The gameplay loop is really good here and while I’m sure there will be those that will find it repetitive, this is a great game if you like cleaning little trinkets and running a business.

As for negatives, there are some. Some people may not like how it’s a game where you control a cursor with the thumbstick. It’s a shame that this didn’t launch with touch screen controls, but I’d say it’s not that bad. It still feels like a game that is best played with a mouse and it can be annoying at times, but you do get used to it. I did also have a hard time in really knowing what part of the sponge was actually touching and cleaning the trinket, but it gets way better once you upgrade your sponge. There were two trinket upcycling quests that were totally annoying as the named customer kept saying it wasn’t what they wanted. One of them was an exact order and I guess it had a specific base piece (aka the piece you start the upcycle with) it checked for. The second was one that seemed like it was totally up to you and gave you creative freedom, but actually it didn’t. It was looking for specific trinkets to be attached to it. Sometimes when looking at the quests to refresh what you need, it’ll endlessly list a trinket until you move the cursor and hover over it again to see if displaying the right trinkets needed. Navigating through the Trinket-pedia list is also very annoying as you can only slowly scroll down the list. And, of course, this includes what I mentioned before (a lot of the named customers’ last visits not feeling like their last) and there are some visual and performance stuff that I’ll go into soon.

Trash Goblin’s sound design is well done here. I quite liked the sound effects here. The dialogue text has a nice, soft sound effect and the little grunts that happen when moving to the next line is as well. I especially like how a lot of the named characters have their own unique text sound effect and grunt as well, which not only sets them apart from the stranger customers, but also gives you an impression on how they must sound. My favorite has to be Milly’s. The sound effects during gameplay were great as well and is oh so satisfying. The soundtrack is lovely here, it definitely falls under cozy music while also matching whatever action that you’re doing. Like having a song with more oomph to it whenever you’re doing a Workbench action or the nice, subdued instrumental song(s?) that plays when talking to customers. Some important named characters even have their own theme and, honestly, my favorite track in the game has to be Aunty’s theme. Although, the music here is quite soft so you might not even hear it unless you’re wearing headphones or turn it up in the settings.

The visuals here are very nice here as well. I liked the art style and the various character and species designs. There are of course some duds for the randomized stranger customers, but most of the time they look great and I certainly have my favorite elements. Don’t tell anyone, but I really like the human strangers carrying dogs (cause the dog wags its tail when you finish a sale) and the frog stranger with their baby on their head (it’s cute). I liked how the different species here were designed, they all are unique and have a good diversity in design elements that the game pulls from, while also feeling that they do all live in the same world. It also leaves a lot of room for the named characters to stand out from the rest and a lot of them have really good designs. The Spirits are especially interesting and unique.

Not to mention the view you get when you’re at the customer desk. You get to see a little snippet of what the area looks like, how the weather is and the lighting changes depending on how far along you are in the day, and you get to see silhouettes of people walking by. I also liked how the shop is designed as well and, oh boy, the visual effect that progresses as you get further into the story. I won’t spoil it, but it starts out really subtle until you’re like “wait, was it always like this?” and then “oh boy, something bad is happening”. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I really liked all the various trinket designs in the game. There are a lot here and I like the diversity in designs and materials.

In terms of performance, it’s good but could be better. The game does get hung up for a second or two at the start or the end of an action (it’s most noticeable when completing the chipping minigame) and sometimes an item can clip through the wash basin or fall where it’s not on the table but not quite off the table (if that makes sense). You can get them out if you get the cursor in the right place, but it can be a bit annoying when an item clips into the wash basin and you think you lost it. I will also admit that you do kind of get used to the game freezing for a second or two before or after doing certain actions. There are also some visual bugs, like the trinket models can just decide to work against you and make upcycling harder (in terms of rotating the trinkets the way you want), the chipping shadow can just not appear or appear for a second before disappearing, there are some character sprites that are noticeably lower quality than the others, and some workmat designs strangely makes lighting for most of the day too bright (ex the frog culture lilypad design).

I did also have three crashes during my playthrough, two when I was switching between the Workbench and Storefront and one when I was out at a different district selling on Market day. Luckily, the game does autosave pretty frequently (either after every action or after every time-passing action) so I didn’t lose much progress.

You’re talking to a rich goblin uwu

Verdict

All in all, I quite enjoyed Trash Goblin. It does have its share of downsides and does risk feeling old or repetitive, but this turned out to be a great game. The writing is well done and I quite enjoyed seeing how the main story progressed and talking to the various characters, the gameplay loop was great and oh so satisfying, the game is cozy and lets you go at your own pace while having just enough challenge so it’s not boring, the soundtrack is lovely, and the artwork is great. If you’re someone that likes cozy games where you clean things or where you run a business or, better yet, both, Trash Goblin would be the perfect game for you. I’ll also say the Switch version is worth getting as long as you’ll be forgiving towards the good enough performance.