My Playtime: 7.9h (100% achievement, finished the game)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (~30 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Nanotale - Typing Chronicles is an adventure game played on a keyboard. You need to use your keyboard to type the words above the enemy's head to attack it, type the words above plants to gather it, and type highlighted words on a dialogue to talk to a fellow human. Everything is done on a keyboard.

Pros:
- Gameplay is easy to understand
- A lot of collectibles, all marked within the map for easy completion

Cons:
- It's easy to get soft-locked
- Opening minimap several times will bug it, making it not disappear after it's toggled off

Specs
Steam Deck: AMD Zen 2 4c/8t 2.4-3.5GHz, 16 GB RAM, 8 AMD RDNA 2 CUs

If you want to practice typing or want to play a game that is playable only with a keyboard, yes.

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The visuals in Nanotale - Typing Chronicles look great, so great that it fries my laptop—I was forced to play this on Steam Deck, which works well afterward except for a few times when I can hardly see what I should type to attack an enemy. I think part of what makes the game so resource-intensive lies in its overuse of effects, which can't be toggled off in the settings. They make the game look great, though.

The story isn't special. It can be confusing at first, with you meeting a spirit and suddenly being forced to travel the whole region without any reason. The story starts to make sense at the end—minus the traveling part, where it unfolds all mysteries since the first area. The ending was alright. It ties up all loose ends while still giving the conclusion to the story.

Gameplay
As I said before, you play Nanotale - Typing Chronicles with a keyboard. You move with a keyboard, you interact with a plant with a keyboard, you attack with a keyboard—it's all done the same way. Most of the time, you'll have to type whatever is written above the target's head to trigger it. The game does this smoothly even when there are a lot of targets to type. You can cancel your current typing with a backspace button too, which helps when you accidentally press the wrong button.

You have a lot of spells you can try, some can be learned after you progress the game. These spells will help you to access some areas, allowing you to backtrack to find areas that you couldn't reach before. The backtracking in this game only revolves around a single area; you can collect everything in an area before you move to a new one.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2442403256

The game makes it easy for you to collect everything. The map will give a marker whenever there is something that you can forage, and it's drawn in such detail that makes it hard to get lost.

It can take time to figure out what each spell can do, especially since they can be too vague to figure out. Take the first spell for example. You get a push and a pull spell to push and pull an object towards something, but you can only cast it to another object. Add it with the large and long modifier—it makes the spell more vague.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1897371552

The confusion also contributes to the puzzles, making them harder than they should be. Sometimes, I would stuck for minutes just to figure out what to do because I still hadn't managed to master the spell yet. However, there are also other puzzles that are cleverly done and require more thinking to solve.

Combat
Combat is alright. There are two types: one where you have to survive a wave of enemies, the other is where you just kill everything in your way. Story progression relies on the first one a lot. Enemies will come in droves and you need to prioritize which one to kill. Your spell also helps in this case, giving AoE damage to a bunch of enemies, especially when you use a modifier to make it larger.

Enemies have different attack patterns. Most of them are not harmful unless they get close, although there is one that will charge you quickly. You need to reposition yourself when they attack if you don't want to take damage. However, I found myself not moving most of the time, especially since I'd rather focus on killing the enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2599048836

Sadly, boss fights feel repetitive. They might have a different attack pattern, but none of them stand out. You need to follow the same pattern to beat the bosses with slight modifications. It's as if I'm fighting the same boss three times.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game at 7.5h. I then continued playing the arena to test it and spent the rest of my playtime to get the last achievement that I missed. The game is easy to beat, and there is also an accessibility option to make the enemy easier if you want.

Issues
It's easy to get softlocked. The game makes it worse by introducing mechanics where you can walk on a platform that you can grow by using a spell. These kinds of platforms are usually uneven, making it easy to get stuck to.

Sometimes, it's hard to see the text above the enemy's head. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm playing in a Steam Deck and plugging it on an external monitor or not, though.

Nanotale - Typing Chronicles is an enjoyable typing game. There isn't much to the story and combat, but I liked the worldbuilding and the gameplay in general. It feels like going on an adventure, checking out new floras in the region and seeing how it was used in the game. If you enjoy playing a typing game or want to improve your typing skills, I recommend playing this game, especially if you are the adventurous type.