Trash Goblin - Switch Review

Digging up trinkets, cleaning them, combining them, and selling them is the life of a Trash Goblin who runs a little trinket store. Spilt Milk Studios has brought to life a shopkeeper fantasy life for people to explore their time as a goblin who fulfils people's requests for trinkets they discover. It dug up memories of playing Weapon Shop de Omasse on the 3DS for me, which was such a pleasant experience back in the day. Can this Goblin match the blacksmith?

The Good

All the NPCs you encounter and sell your trinkets to are unique in their design, with variety across the different races. The mushroom people are so damn adorable; the frog and lizard people bring so much colour to the world, and your Aunty truly embraces the goblin look. The trinkets themselves have a real variety across the board and when you combine them together, they create some complete designs or chaotic messes.

The gameplay loop of Trash Goblin is a relaxing experience of casually digging out trinkets from some rocks and selling them to customers at their request. The gold you receive from customers is then used to upgrade and decorate your home and store combo and eventually your tools. I lost a couple of nights playing Trash Goblin and realised I needed to go to bed an hour earlier for work.

I had some genuine laughs happen while talking with the NPCs, with one of my favourites being a lizard person who is VERY excitedly asking for a clean bedpan, who then returns again and again for more bedpans. There’s also your shopkeeper landlord who acts as the tutorial who leaves to get a curséd wardrobe because the é makes it totally not cursed and safe to purchase. The named characters bring so much life to this world and learning their story and history is a delight.

TL;DR

• Cute art
• Relaxing gameplay
• Humorous moments

The Bad

Trash Goblin is a poor port to the Switch from the PC release of the game. Everything works on a cursor placement that you move around with only the analogue stick. The D-Pad buttons don’t even work in-game; I found myself very awkwardly navigating my way around the UI. There was also a few visual glitches I had show up in my time with Trash Goblin; one was where the newly discovered pop-up never went away no matter what I did, so I ended up having to close the game

While the gameplay loop is very relaxing, digging out trinkets is very repetitive and if you don’t change the options, you will end up pressing the A button a LOT. Having the auto cleaner definitely helps reduce a lot of the repetitive nature of cleaning the trinkets you discover.

TL;DR

• Poorly ported
• Somewhat repetitive

Final Score: 7/10

Spilt Milk Studios has made such a cute, cosy game set in a fantasy world. I love all the named NPCs and all the different races that come to your store. However, the trash left behind by the titular Trash Goblin has left a bit of a stench on the Switch port of this title. I do genuinely recommend exploring the life of running a trinket store, just maybe not on the Switch.

Thank you for checking out our Trash Goblin Switch review, thank you to Spilt Milk Studios for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Bobby Jack
• Jack Caven
• Nintendo Maniacs
• RedHero