SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is a slice-of-life game based on the popular anime and manga SpyxFamily! It follows the 5-year-old Anya Forger on her quest to complete her special assignment: a photo diary! You are tasked to create memories, either in school, at home, or on family outings, and save those memories in Anya’s diary through photos.
I had the opportunity to dive into this game alongside my little brother on our PC. For context, he is 7 years old and loves gaming! This is his first time playing with a controller, as he plays on either a laptop or a phone. This is also probably his first slice-of-life game, as he is more of a fan of shooters.
Gameplay
Going into the game, we were sent into a classroom in Eden College. The game is in 3D but does not deviate from how it looks in the anime. We were immediately sent into the tutorial, showing us how to move and navigate. The game recommends that you use a controller, and I do too. I found the keyboard binds awkward (“B” to sprint), and I wasn’t sure if you could change it so I went with the safer option to use a controller.
The game then shows you around the 3 main areas you explore: the School, Home, and Outings. In school, you could talk to Becky, Damian, and Professor Henderson. Talking to them each day grants you Chat Points that, with enough points, unlock a cutscene and special art panels. The dialogue in this game is also fully voiced, so when the animated cutscenes play, they feel like you’re watching a clip from the anime!
Aside from the dialogues, you could also find “Super Cool Items” where you could take photos of Anya for her photo diary. Taking photos launches you into the camera, where you have to fulfill three criteria: Focus, Angle, and Timing! Get these three right and you get 3-star photos for Anya’s diary. The criteria serve as your guide to what scene the game wants you to capture, with photos ranging from adorable to chaotic. We know Anya to be a cute girl when she smiles, but she also has a barrage of facial expressions up her sleeve for funny moments.
After doing these tasks, you go home to talk to Loid, Yor, Bond, and recurring characters Yuri and Fiona, who drop by the house once in a while. You could also find the Super Cool Items at home as well! Completing this transitions you to dinnertime. After dinner, you can view the photo diary that gives you access to the mini-games.
After you’re done with the above, you end the day by going to sleep, making you one more day closer to Outing Day!
Outings are how the Forgers will be spending their weekends to make memories for Anya’s photo diary. It could be a walk in the park, a shopping run to town, or playing at the beach! You could dress up the family before heading out to your destination. You also get to bring Super Cool Items to take photos with which you could buy at the store. Something that I would like to point out about this game is that it is very generous. You’ll have enough spending credits to buy everything you need for your trips, alongside outfits that you would want each member of the family to wear, including Bond!
The snippets of family life that you capture through these outings are very cute and heartwarming. While there are some funny shots to be taken, a lot of these moments are just Loid and Yor playing and spending time with Anya. The game goes through a lot of repetition, but if there’s any reason to complete Anya’s photo book, it’s because of delightful scenes like this.
Now, I would like to backtrack a bit and talk more about my experience playing this game with my brother. Something that I would like to focus on is, to me, the highlight of this game: the mini-games.
Mini-games
During the mini-games section, I handed my little brother the controller. He asked me why the games are the way they are, and I had to explain a bit of the series’ background. Things like Loid being a Spy and Yor being an assassin weren’t touched upon in the main story of this game but were the main themes of their respective mini-games. For example, Loid’s mini-game was him on an undercover mission with the player’s goal of not getting caught, while Yor’s was a beat-em-up game with multiple levels where you face off with a boss and his goons. This was a bit confusing for my brother who was familiar with Anya as a character, but never really watched the series. Since this game was his only exposure to the series, Loid and Yor seemed like pretty normal parents.
This is where I realized that there wasn’t any intro to who these characters are. Granted that the people interested in the game would be fans of the series, it was surprising for it to just go straight to the tutorial. One of the first things you do is to speak to Becky. While there are indicators to show you who that is, it might be confusing to those unfamiliar with the series.
Despite the early confusion with the themes, my brother easily completed the two abovementioned games. He especially liked sneaking around as Loid’s Agent Twilight and trying to avoid bad guys. What he had trouble with though was the game “Cooking With Yor” as he could not grasp the timing for cutting vegetables, much less cutting them with precision. This was the one I played instead.
The minigames are fun and I’m glad they are pretty on-brand for the characters. I was first concerned whether or not my little brother could pick the mechanics up, but he seemed to understand it after a few tries and under some guidance. The games have three difficulties which you can unlock after playing them constantly. The lowest tier, the “Peanut” level, is very forgiving and is the tier I let my brother play.
But later on, as you progress, the games you unlock get a tad bit more difficult. After unlocking outing destinations, you also unlock more mini-games alongside them. The next set of games, namely the PacMan-like “Tag with P2”, as well as the card games were starting to become troublesome for my little brother. I could also imagine him making mistakes in the Yuri-focused “Yuri’s Cuisine” game (even I haven’t got a clean run on it), but the Nap-time game seems like something he could get into.
Final Thoughts & Conclusion
Now for something that I wish was more developed was the outings. I think a huge part of the game being repetitive was because there wasn’t much payoff for completing the tasks. After finishing your school week, your reward is going out on these outings, but there wasn’t much to do besides photo-taking. Some of the destinations feel empty. My brother also brought this up on our second Town trip. And yes, you go to these destinations at least twice to complete them. When going to these outings, you can bring three Super Cool Items that you can buy from the store. While the game is generous by giving you more than enough credits to buy all the items you need, you can’t 100% complete your trips in one go since you can only take two photos per trip. The game could have gone a bit faster if we could have taken all of the photos in one trip, lessening the repetitive feel and rewarding the player with the destinations faster.
Despite this, I would like to say that even though this game is geared toward kids, it is still an enjoyable experience as an adult. Before getting my copy, I was already interested in the game and was looking forward to all the mini-games and I’m glad that it was at a level that I could enjoy with my brother. He also enjoyed his experience playing it and has asked me to play it again. It’s a good, chill game for the family and something that I could highly recommend to fans of the series.
SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is available now on PC, PS5, PS4, and Switch.
