May 4, 2023Reviews
Thanks to Crytivo for a chance to play this game!
Roots of Pacha is an absolutely adorable farming and life simulation game by developer Soda Den and publisher Crytivo. Players get to customize their very own character and be a member of a thriving stone age community. Discover ideas to improve the village, grow and harvest crops from seeds you find in the wild, befriend a variety of cute animals, get to know your fellow tribes mates, and much more.
There’s no doubt that Stardew Valley really rocketed the farming and life sim genre into the limelight, though we can’t forget Harvest Moon in that either. There’s nothing more relaxing than taking control of your life and just farming the days away, after all. Following the success of both games, it’s only natural that more and more farm and life sims popped up to fulfill the desires of players, and not all are made equal. Then there’s the charming Roots of Pacha.
Set in a stone age where technology is rudimentary, you get to explore new ideas and invent new tools with the help of your fellow villagers. Discover the “solar dryer” for drying meats, fruits, and veggies, as well as the “smoker” to cook fish and meats. Or simply go to the kitchen and whip up a tasty salad or flavorful soup.
Of course, you get to befriend your fellow tribe mates, as well as romance some of the men and women. Deliver different gifts to discover each person’s likes and dislikes. Increase your relationship levels to unlock cute cut scenes, as well as the ability to dance with others as a sign of friendship. It’s a wholesome system of interactions with a cast of characters featuring a variety of personalities and quirks.
What I truly enjoy about Roots of Pacha is the farming and the animal husbandry. Your grandfather shows you how to farm, then leaves it all to you. It’s your job to explore to collect seasonal seeds from wild crops. Those seeds can then be planted and eventually harvested. What I find really fun is that the whole thing is a blank slate. In Stardew Valley, the time it takes for a crop to grow is readily displayed, but here you don’t know. Each time you harvest a crop, your knowledge level about that crop increases, unlocking information like how long a crop grows. It adds a really fun bit of discovery to the game.
As for animals, you also find those in the wild while exploring. Using your flute, you play a short rhythm mini game to build a friendship with the animal. It takes a few days to tame an animal, but once you do, you can invite them to live in an animal hut in the village. Some animals are strictly pets and can live in your hut with you. The animals who live in the animal huts can produce various products like milk, eggs, and fur that can be used in food recipes or crafting items.
Roots of Pacha also has fishing, and I thoroughly enjoy it. Instead of trying to line up a bar with a a fish, you hover over the shadows of fish. Wait as the bar fills up and turns into “Catch now!” to successfully catch a fish. You can attempt to catch before that message appears, but risk losing the fish to your hastiness. This mini game allows for a relaxing fishing experience, I think, and I much prefer it to other fishing systems.
I don’t want to spoil everything as it’s worth it to play and discover your own, but Roots of Pacha has so much to offer. It’s not solely on the player to contribute and build up the village, which my be my favorite part. Improvements aren’t strictly on you to make, as it should be! Looking at you, Animal Crossing.
After certain amounts of Clan Prosperity are reached, villagers will complete beautification projects that really make the village feel alive and lived in. There’s also a cave system to mine in that holds some fun secrets and puzzling mysteries. Being able to decorate your hut and farm are absolutely a plus, too
Overall, Roots of Pacha takes common farming sim elements that people love, but improves them. Not to mention, there’s multiplayer, so you can play solo or with friends. It’s an adorable game with beautiful scenery and amusing activities. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for another farm and life sim to add to their library.
I give this game:
Roots of Pacha is available on Steam now.
For more farming sim fun, check out Clouzy, Wylde Flowers, or this list of farm sims for console.
Apr 27, 2023Reviews
Ooblets, a life simulation and creature collection adventure game from developers Glumberland, is an outstandingly adorable game. Players customize their own character and move to the run-down little town of Badgetown. There, you’ll learn all about the cute little creatures called ooblets. These fun and whimsical little creatures come in all shapes and colors, and can even help you on your farm where you’ll grow crops as well as new ooblets! Join an Ooblet Club, have dance battles with other trainers and their ooblets, and complete quests to liven up the town. Also decorate your home, buy new clothes to match your style, open your very own shop, and much more.
If you’re familiar with Pokemon, then you’ll be familiar with the idea behind collecting Ooblets in all their shapes and colors. Some are rarer than others, of course, and each town and biome you visit will feature their very own types of ooblets. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock more ooblets for each area, too.
What really tickles me is the use of trainer battles, but instead of trying to hurt and knock out the other team, you compete in a dance battle. Dance battles involve a deck of cards that have certain abilities on them. The contents of your deck (and your opponent’s) depends on the ooblets you’ve chosen for your team. Each ooblet type has certain abilities, and as they level up, you’ll unlock new abilities and cards. For example, dumbirbs add in a card that lets you add “trepidation” to the opponent’s deck, which is adding useless cards to their deck so they’ll draw blank cards. That makes them unable to gain points, which are needed to win. The first person to the point total (which depends on the size of the group you are battling), wins.
Ultimately, it’s a simple little change to the usual creature collection battle style, but it’s wildly successful for a cozy game, in my opinion. The music used is fun and upbeat without being annoying. The dancing animations are adorable. The use of cards to choose moves is creative, too. Plus, when you win, kind words and congratulations are given to the opponent. It’s heartwarming.
Aside from the battles, your little ooblet friends are useful on the farm! Build them small Oob Coops, assign them specific jobs, and they’ll help with the farm chores. They can water crops, pick crops, battle weeds, break up rocks, and harvest logs so you can focus on dance battles and quests. Don’t forget to dress them up in the cute ooblet accessories you’ll collect from completing quests. Make them even more adorable than they already are.
Glumberland really nailed it with this game. Aside from the adorable creatures and fun dance battles, the humor is just spot on. Overall, the game is goofy. There’s a wide cast of characters with wildly varying personalities and dialogues. Some are scathing, some sweet, and some just don’t make sense, adding to the silliness of their image. Items have weird names (like the sprinklehot or the dribbly can). People’s names aren’t standard, every-day things either. You’ll meet people like Churles who runs the clothing store, and Rugnolia who’s the local scientist (think Professor Oak). Whatever I’m doing in the game, it usually succeeds in making me giggle at least once here and there at its cute absurdity.
Ooblets uses a beautifully vibrant color scheme without being painfully bright. Plus, each area features its very own look and introduces a new unique biome into the mix, allowing for some fun exploration. Add in a variety of quests, home renovations, farming, and ooblet dance battles, there’s a lot to do and love in this game.
I don’t know if I adequately captured the silliness and beauty of Ooblets, but perhaps it’s better to just experience it first-hand. I cannot recommend this game enough. It is adorable. It’s funny. It’s cozy and relaxing, too. Ooblets is a great addition to the farming sim genre, and should be added to your list of games to play
Ultimately, I give it:
Ooblets is available on the Epic Games store, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox. There are plans for a Steam release at some point, too.
Check out Monster Harvest or Palworld for more creature collection fun.
Apr 12, 2023Reviews
DREDGE is a short, but fantastic fishing adventure with some creepy and sinister undercurrents. You play as an unnamed fisherman and captain of your very own fishing trawler. Take your little fishing boat out into the open ocean to fish up over 100 different types of fish. Explore the beautiful, but mysterious archipelago to unearth some mysteries.
Conduct research on new parts for your boat. Buy upgraded engines to move faster, purchase new fishing poles and trawl nets to fish better, and collect building materials to make your boat better able to hold more items. Don’t forget to stop by and speak to the residents of the islands. They may have some quests or pieces of knowledge to impart. Someone even wants you to dredge up artifacts from the past, but can you truly trust them?
Just don’t get caught on the open sea at night. Nothing good happens at night.
Black Salt Games really did well with the atmosphere and spookiness of DREDGE. The game isn’t meant to be overtly scary, just have hints of eeriness and an underlying sinister feel to it. And it achieves that.
The archipelago is plagued with secrets and mysteries. The art is beautiful, but really builds that creepy atmospheric feel. The NPC portraits depict tough, weathered people. Some are craggy and aging, some are youthful, but haggard, proving that life in tiny fishing villages isn’t always easy.
The dynamic lighting really helps set the scene, too. The main island, The Marrows, has clear seas and bright, beautiful skies. It lulls you into a false sense of security, but as you adventure around, things aren’t quite so safe. The dark hidey holes of Gale Cliffs hide some interesting fishing prospects, but also something a little more ominous. Stellar Basin with its bioluminescent creatures and white sands looks like a sweet beach getaway. At first. The yellow swampy haze of Twisted Strand hides some haunting mysteries. And Devil’s Spine, an island with volcanic vents and rivers, bathed in a fiery red light, holds an even more grim story.
Along with the unnamed nighttime terrors and the mysterious behaviors of the man who tasks you with uncovering the past, it all adds up to achieve that eerie spookiness without being an absolutely terrifying experience.
There is not a lot to DREDGE. You don’t control a character, there are no 3D NPCs to visit, no walking through villages or across islands. You only control your little fishing trawler while out to sea. When in port, it’s a simple 2D menu-type interaction. Your options for buildings and people are set out in front of you, and you simply scroll and tap the button to choose which option you want. I honestly liked it a lot. It simplified things. Do I need to visit the fishmonger to sell a load of mackerel? Slide over and click. Is a visit to the Shipwright for new fishing poles in order? Scroll and click. No mindless running across town to get to different people because I forgot something.
There’s also no over complicated crafting systems or gameplay in DREDGE. You explore the different islands in different biomes, you collect information and quests from the handful of people you come across, you dredge up items from the depths, and you fish! It’s perfect for those days when you don’t want to play something complicated, but want to play something.
There are 125 different types of fish to catch in DREDGE, and they all live in different areas. From the shallows of the main island to the deep dark depths of a volcanic island, and even the swamps of a totally different island. There’s no shortage of fish.
The fishing system is easy to use, too. The game implements a few different types of catching mini games, but they’re all essentially the same. You click a button to reel in the line when the timing is right and the necessary zones are lined up. That’s it. It can get repetitive, but it doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of the game, I think.
DREDGE is the first game for indie studio Black Salt Games, and it’s a good one. It’s a little short and slightly repetitive, but I think it’s worth a playthrough.
The spooky factor is just enough that the game feels creepy and a little off, but is pretty low-stakes. I’m a fairly anxious gamer, so it’s perfect for me. Even just hearing the music change in Breath of the Wild as a Guardian sees me is enough to get me anxious! It’s really why I like to mostly stick to the cozy games. Plus, the fishing is easy to do. There’s no fighting to match the bobber with the fish like in Stardew Valley. It can be repetitive, but it’s a fishing system I enjoy much more.
I also wish there was a little more to DREDGE. It has so many upgrades for you to get, but there’s really no use for a large portion of them. I want a reason to need those upgrades, other than personal satisfaction.
Ultimately, I give it:
You can find DREDGE on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox.
For more fishing, check out Luna’s Fishing Garden, and for something slightly spooky, check out Critter Crops.
Feb 23, 2023Reviews
In 2017, indie game developers Sidebar Games dropped an absolute gem of a game called Golf Story. It took a sport that I (and perhaps many of you) never really liked, and made it fun. Through quirky characters, off-the-wall dialogue, and oftentimes unhinged quest line, there’s a lot to love about Golf Story.
If you’re unfamiliar with Golf Story, you play as an unnamed male character who gives up everything he loves for his last shot at accomplishing his dreams of becoming a professional golfer. Golf is central to the game, but not the only thing players get to experience. Players fight skeletons, steal snow from a group of bandits, and complete other silly quests. There’s so many odd antics to keep players involved and entertained.
Then there’s Sports Story, the long-awaited sequel.
This highly ambitious sequel picks back up with Golf Story’s protagonist, who is tasked with investigating the suspicious activities of golf giant Purestrike, as well as the Iron Dragons yakuza. Sports Story brings back the quirky dialogue and oddball NPCs that made its predecessor such a delight. Players get to meet the feisty Iron Dragons, haughty sports royalty, and even pirates!
Of course the golf element is back. Players get to compete in and complete a variety of full courses, mini golf courses, putting greens, and other challenges. You’ll encounter any number of difficulty levels, too. Track down or buy new golf clubs, as well as find golf balls with different abilities to help complete courses. Level up your golf skills, aim well, and don’t forget to take the wind into account while you plan your shots.
Sports Story branches out beyond just golf, obviously. In fact, it includes volleyball, cricket, soccer, BMX riding, fishing, and tennis, which has its own whole side story. I was incredibly excited about the prospect of other sports. Sidebar Games really did a great job on the golf aspect, so I thought surely the other sports would be just as good. I was wrong
Luckily, many of the sports are side items, though you do need to complete several in order to level up your license to move on to other quests and areas. I think I dislike BMX biking the most. You press A to pedal and B to jump. Which means, I’m holding the controller awkwardly, and having to struggle to hit those two buttons as needed. You also need to tilt the bike with the left joystick as you come down from a jump. Landing flat allows you to continue pedaling with minimal stopping, while landing poorly causes you to bounce and lose precious time.
All of the other sports in Sports Story were troublesome, too. The activities you need to complete with them were fairly dependent on direction, but there was no way to direct the ball. The soccer minigames were few and far between, but weren’t too bad. The tennis, however, was the worst. At some point you enter the tennis academy to complete that long, tedious side story. You learn four different shots that use varying strengths and speeds, but there’s no aiming involved. So, completing minigames where you have to hit paper balls into a trash can, or aim the ball at targets is all up to which direction the ball machine happens to shoot the ball.
As much as I love the return to goofy that made Golf Story so charming, it’s simply not enough to carry a game. It helped ease the blow of all the other sports being so mundane. However, Sports Story used a lot of fetch quests to move the story forward. I’m all for some fetch quests as they can be useful, but this was more like Fetch Story than Sports Story.
Between the numerous quests and the humdrum sports mechanics, I found the game tedious to play and complete. It felt like Sidebar Games packed Sports Story full to make it feel like a longer play, but failed to make it great to play. And don’t get me started on the ending! I won’t outright spoil it for anyone hoping to play, but the ending was unsatisfying. It made the point of going through the story unfulfilling as nothing happens. The powers that be just decide they’re ok with the status quo for now, and that’s it, roll credits.
Even having finished Sports Story, I still desperately want to love it. Sidebar Games really knows how to bring golf to life in a fun way. They’re also great at delivering punchy, quirky lines that make characters charming in a weird way. If the developers had managed to make the other sports better to play, and nixed so many of the fetch quests, Sports Story would be great. As it is, it’s merely ok in my book.
Perhaps there was more going on behind the scenes than just the game becoming more and more ambitious than originally planned, and that contributed to Sports Story being alright. Players found a secret dev room hidden within the game that pointed at troubles within the team or company. Sidebar Games has since released some patches to remove that information from the game.
Ultimately, I give it:
You can find Sports Story (and Golf Story) on the Nintendo Switch shop.
If you’re looking for more golf fun, try Golf With Your Friends or What the Golf.
Dec 7, 2022News
In Yum Yum Cookstar, you’ll join chef Yum Yum in the kitchen to learn and create a variety of wonderful dishes. Take time to learn different cooking techniques from something as simple as cracking an egg, to knife skills, and even frying or grilling. There’s not a shortage of cooking techniques.
Once you’ve learned the appropriate cooking skills, you can make a fairly large assortment of recipes. There’s fun rainbow-color desserts like Rainbow Waffles and Unicorn Cupcake Cones. There’s also some savory dishes to prepare, like Falafel Pita, Sushi Burrito, and Japanese Summer Noodle Salad. Then, you present your creations to the judges to receive a score. It is a competition, after all!
The overall gameplay for Yum Yum Cookstar is fairly easy. You get a few options on what controls to use on the Nintendo Switch, which I found useful. I used the touch screen and Joy-Con controls. So, mixing and the swiping mini games were done via touch screen, while others like rinsing used the thumbstick, and baking used the Joy-Con buttons. While my rhythmic abilities are lacking, the touch screen made it easier for me than trying to use the buttons for everything.
You’ll need to learn some cooking techniques before you can work on recipes. Then, as you complete sets of recipes, you’ll unlock more cooking techniques, which unlocks more recipes to cook. You can learn each technique in a tutorial level with an unhurried atmosphere and no pressure. You can also revisit the technique’s tutorial to replay it at any time if you need a refresher.
After you’ve finished learning the techniques, you’re ready to cook the real recipes! Both The techniques and recipes involve playing a mini game. Many of the cooking techniques are rhythm-based mini games, which is fun. There’s a playful and unique soundtrack for the game that’s both relaxing and upbeat. I unfortunately am not rhythmic, so I never scored perfectly!
I would have liked to see more variety in mini games, though. It gets fairly repetitive the longer you play, because the techniques are always done one specific way. For example, stirring is always swiping left and right, swiping up and down, and making circles on the screen. There’s no change in that, or the order it happens during the mini game.
The personalities of the judges are almost as wide an array as the different types of recipes. Max Picante is the fun, light-hearted judge who’s easy to please. Basil Wellington is the snobby restaurant critic who demands absolute perfection and will test your skills. Then, there’s ambrosia, the pop star who is the middle ground between the other two judges and gives a more fair assessment.
What’s fun is that National Lampoon is responsible for the lines the judges say throughout the game. And sometimes, they throw out some funny responses. The disappointment I’ve gotten when I’ve failed tasks has been entertaining.
Yum Yum Cookstar is bright and colorful, and a perfectly casual game with the choice to have a no-stress play through. Or if you like a challenge, there’s different difficulty levels to try. It did fall a little flat for me, though.
The cooking techniques were repetitive, though that makes it easy to practice the activities to get perfect scores! Sometimes the number of mini games per recipe made it feel like an eternity making that recipe. My biggest complaint, though, is the long loading screens that occur between each segment of cooking and each segment of cut scenes. That really made the game feel like it dragged on. There’s some really fun art to look at on the loading screens, though!
However, the variety of recipes Yum Yum Cookstar has is wholly welcome and enjoyable. The vastly different personalities of the judges made their scenes entertaining, and it gives the game a competition feel. Overall, it’s a pretty good game to just pick up and play when you have a moment to fill, or are bored but aren’t looking for something more involved.
Epic Chef is another cute cooking game to checkout!
Nov 24, 2022Indie Highlight
Wylde Flowers is an absolutely enchanting game with an incredible story line. In it, you play as Tara, a city girl who has just moved to Fairhaven to help her ailing grandmother with the farm. Unfortunately, the farm is in disrepair since grandpa passed away, so it’s up to you to restore it to its former glory. You’ll learn the basics of running a farm from Grandma Hazel, and the townsfolk will help you learn more advanced concepts. They’ll also prove to be a wonderful community to get to know.
Of course, farming isn’t the only new thing Tara will learn. As it turns out, Grandma is a well-respected witch in the local coven, and Tara’s also a witch. She’ll learn to cast magic spells and craft potions to help with things like growing crops or restoring her energy, and more! All while building relationships with the townspeople, possibly finding love, and solving the mysteries of the island.
Wylde Flowers is pretty straightforward as far as game-play goes. You run a farm that needs to be repaired. You’ll utilize Parker, the town woodworker, and Natalia, the town blacksmith, quite a bit in order to fix up the farm. Otto, the local fisherman, will give you a lesson on fishing, and eventually you’ll be able to buy livestock from Marty, who is also new to the town.
The crops and flowers you’ll be able to grow are seasonal, until you build the greenhouse. You’ll then be able to use the crops in recipes you can cook in your kitchen, many of which will help you in becoming friends with the townsfolk. Unfortunately, the space you’ll have to grow crops and flowers is limited. The greenhouse only has 5 plots, while the first outdoor garden you have access to can potentially hold around 11 plots. It will depend on your creativity in how things fit together. It’s almost like playing Tetris, with more unusable spots. When you finally open the large garden, you can fit about 27 plots there.
It’s certainly no Stardew Valley in farm size, but it didn’t pose any problems for me. Crops grow within a few days, and when you control the seasons (more on that later), it’s easy to just grow everything you want per season.
The magic system is a fun addition to a farm sim (though I’d say farming is the secondary bit to this game, while the story is the main thing). You’ll learn spells to make it rain, create thunderstorms, freeze time, reverse time, grow crops faster, make crops yield more per harvest, and much more.
I think my favorite part of the magic system is being able to ride a broomstick as a way to fast travel. While the playable map is fairly small, it’s still a great mechanic to get to unlock. Even better is the incorporation of magic into it. What’s not fun about getting to ride a broomstick across town?
My one complaint with this system is the ability to occupy your cat familiar, Cleocatra. While it’s a fun mechanic, and does play a part in the story, it’s not as useful as I’d hoped. It’s used once in the story, and that’s the only time it’s necessary to even be a cat. It’s also a pain if you don’t know how to do it, like me. When you become the cat, there’s no way to cancel the spell, unless you go to sleep. So, use it wisely, if you do choose to use it more often.
The townspeople of Fairhaven are possibly my second favorite thing about Wylde Flowers. The cast is wildly diverse. From Kim, who is of Japanese descent and identifies as nonbinary and isn’t sure how to navigate beginning a relationship, to Amira who’s super flirty from the start. There’s even Cameron, the local leader of the League of the Conscious Mind center (*cough* can you say cult *cough*) with his sketchy past and charming personality.
Each character you’ll encounter in Wylde Flowers has their very own personality and rich back stories. Even better is each one is fully voice acted. And I don’t mean one guy and one woman change their voices to act out each character. Everyone has their own unique voice actor to capture the personality of the character. It’s hard not to feel the charm and beauty in individuality with this cast. You even have the chance to date and marry one of seven romanceable characters. So, take your time to get to know everyone, and see who you’d like to date, or just build meaningful friendships with everyone. The choice is yours!
I won’t go into detail about the story line, because it’s what Wylde Flowers is all about and I want all of you to experience the joy of progressing through it, but this is my favorite thing about the game. It seems so simple at first. Tara arrives in Fairhaven to take over and restore the family farm as Grandma Hazel is no longer able to take care of it. Then, Tara discovers Hazel, and herself, are witches. Tara is welcomed into the local coven, and is tasked with discovering the secret identities of each coven member after she’s gained their trust.
After that, Tara spends her time restoring the farm, exploring the mines, raising crops and livestock, and delving into her magical studies. However, she’s also working to solve the problems and mysteries that the small island town faces. And all of this while building relationships with the townsfolk, or even dating.
You and the coven are in charge of turning the seasons, which means you can progress as fast or as slow as you wish to, within reason anyway. You won’t get the opportunity (or appropriate spells) to change the seasons unless you progress the story, but when you reach that point, it’s all on you to initiate the change. So, take your time helping out the town with the bulletin board requests, exploring the mine, fishing, farming, and talking to everyone.
The downside is that you only get to experience one Spring, one Summer, one Fall, one Winter, then what I’ve deemed the Eternal Spring. You’ll change seasons one last time to Spring, and that’s it. You can play indefinitely after you finish the story line, but you better stock up on seasonal finds each season.
I LOVED Wylde Flowers and will absolutely be replaying it again and dating everyone I can. Even despite some of the minor irks like the cat transformation and the Eternal Spring. I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s perfect for cozy gamers, is absolutely beautiful, and a whole lot of fun. And any game that gives me the name “Cattleclysm” as a preset option to name my cow with is great in my eyes!
Check out another farm sim review we’ve done for Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town!
Jul 12, 2020Feature
Created by Marvelous and XSEED, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a remake Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which was initially released for Game Boy Advance back in 2003. No longer working with Natsume, Marvelous have rebranded their farming games, hence the change from the original game title. The game was recently released on July 10th in countries such as the UK, and is set to release on July 14th in the US. The game is playable on Nintendo Switch and PC.
Despite there now being a rather saturated farming simulation game market, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town still manages to earn a place amongst popular games such as Stardew Valley and My Time at Portia. In my personal opinion, it even manages to surpass such games in certain ways due to it’s adorable simplicity. The game features a charming close knit town, harvest sprites with unique personalities, and is unburdened with too many anxiety-provoking features.
Your character has inherited a farm from their grandfather which they used to visit as a child. Entrusted to restoring it to its former glory, you are entasked with raising both crops and animals.
A slight disappointment upon beginning the game was the lack of character customization. With only 3 different skin tones to select from and 2 character options from 2 genders (4 character options in total), the game seemed quite out of touch, and I found myself not relating to my character like I had in Stardew Valley.
For me, the gameplay experience was therefore somewhat comparable to living the lives of the pre-made characters and families in The Sims games. On the upside, a variety of different outfits, some of which are absolutely adorable, can be changed into. To do so, you simply need to interact with the mirror in your home.
Moving onto the game’s plot; there isn’t one. At least not in the traditional sense. However, players can watch their farm grow, as well as mine, forage, and fish. Players can also explore Mineral Town and its shops, meet the townsfolk there, make friends, and even find a potential marriage candidate if they so desire.
A nice element of continuity is that the child your character spent time with during childhood summers returns part way through the game, and is a marriage candidate.
Additional features include seasonal festivals and events, often occurring with mini-games that players can participate in. Examples include the Cooking Festival, the Frisbee Festival, the Cluck Cluck Festival, plus more.
A very much welcome addition to the game is the introduction of same-sex marriage. In the original game, players could only become best friends with NPC’s of the same sex of their character. Other changes include the introduction of two new marriage candidates, Jennifer and Brandon. Another cool feature is the introduction of a coffee cow, which produces coffee that players can harvest.
When in certain places at certain times/circumstances, players can also watch entertaining little cut scenes unfold. From gossiping, to acts of flirting to family squabbles, these cut scenes give an insight into characters’ personalities, and can also liven up the game when farming becomes a little monotonous.
The aforementioned cut scenes utilize 3D graphics, just like the rest of the game. This a move from the 2D sprite art of the original game. The use of 3D graphics in the remake is controversial. Some have argued that the 3D graphics appear simplistic and ‘cheap’. Others, however, have shown approval of the game’s chibi-like art style, great resolution both docked and undocked, as well as it having a consistent 60 FPS.
However, from a personal standpoint, I can definitely see why the default Nintendo Switch cursor is 2D and not 3D. You can change the cursor to 3D, but I’d really suggest otherwise unless you fancy a floating box as a cursor…
I was confused to say the least upon starting the game, as I am accustomed to background music when playing farming simulation games. On the very first day of gameplay, there was no background music (BGM) whatsoever, which was rather unsettling. I messed around in settings seeing if there was a way to ‘turn it on’, but to no avail.
However, there was BGM from day 2 onwards, which also changes with each season. I then realized that the absence of music on day 1 was due to a lapse in my attention during the game’s introductory speech with the mayor. He had said that the first day there was a day to rest, and I assume the lack of BGM was to symbolize that.
A feature I found pretty cool (albeit a little eerie), is a chime at 8pm, followed by an absence of BGM and featuring the occasional hoot of an owl. This is helpful, as it is quite easy to get absorbed into all of the daily tasks and got to bed late. Going to bed late will mean that your players oversleeps the next day.
TL;DR 8pm is Bed o’clock.
As the game is rather slow-paced (as is the norm for Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games), it is unlikely you’ll immediately want to replay the game. Personally, it is the type of game I’d return to a year or two later, when my terrible memory has forgotten all about it and it’s like getting a brand new game!
Albeit slow-paced, one of the most appealing things about the game is that there is always something to do. The phrase ‘not enough hours in the day’ really does ring true. With the only real danger/threat in the game being collapsing from fatigue, the game is definitely family-friendly. In comparison to more modern farming simulation games, some may feel that the game is too simplistic. But sometimes simple is better, especially when it comes with fond childhood memories, wholesomeness and a pinch of modern-day relevance.
Big thanks to XSEED Games andMarvelous USA, Inc. for providing myPotatoGames with a copy of Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town!
Dec 18, 2019Reviews
Tools Up is a local cooperative game about home renovation developed by The Knights of Unity and published by All in! Games. Wait! I promise you it’s a lot more fun than that sounds. With up to 4 players you can make your way up several floors of a skyscraper and play a level in every apartment. You must successfully follow the instructions of your blueprints (i.e. by painting the right walls the right colors) in a race against the clock! The game released on December 3rd, 2019 on the Nintendo Switch, Steam, Xbox One, and the PS4. I’d like to thank the creators of Tools Up for supplying me with a Nintendo Switch code to write this review!
The game starts with a short but hilarious opening scene displaying the utmost incompetence by a team of renovators. You have your choice of Party Mode where you can just play the levels you unlocked in Campaign Mode for fun or attempt said main game and achieve as many golden stars as possible. You can choose your avatar from a small pool of pre-set characters and then change their skin tone. These characters all look a little silly and it’s too bad I couldn’t play as someone…a little cuter. Although you can unlock more characters as you progress and I was slightly happier to be a chubby alpaca.
Instead of going through a tutorial level or having instructions shown clearly before entering a level, you’re kind of on your own with figuring out what to do. With a lot of trial and error, I eventually got the hang of the controls and requirements to pass a level and it got a easier from there. One player should always go get the rolled up paper that are blueprints in order to know what work needs to be done.
There are images showing in color either walls or floor with the name of the room in the top left-hand corner. I found it to be strange that text doesn’t also appear above the rooms when looking at the blueprints so you know which rooms are which. However, after careful examination, I noticed that while the blueprints were being viewed, they were showing the end results of your rooms, not their current state. The rooms that need to be done pop-out ever so slightly but it’s really easy to miss. Switching back and forth from looking at your blueprints helps to spot the differences.
In a couple of levels, the game decides to throw you a curve ball with the blueprints where one gives you a second one to work with which was fun, and the other had 3 from the start all saying different things which wasn’t so fun. There was no explanation as to which one we were supposed to follow so I tried all of them to see what stuck. Another thing that will keep you going back to your blueprints is the fact that it’s the only way to rotate your camera and see different angles of your rooms. For the most part I never bothered as objects are highlighted unless I missed a spot and couldn’t see where. It’s such a simple thing, rotating the camera, that I think should be accessible at all times in order to relieve a world of frustration.
Surprisingly there is a lot of variation with your renovation just like in real life which keeps things fresh and entertaining. With floors you can use carpet, laminate or tiles, and walls you can use paint or wallpaper, all in various colors. You’ve got your paint cans (which could be a little more obvious as to their colors), a garbage can for recycling, your grout, glue, or whatever else those bag and boxes were, and the items mentioned above. Sometimes it could be hard differentiating between your mixing items because the labels are small, they’re all white, and I also have no idea what certain things are used for because I’m not a real-life renovator and need a little more hand-holding.
Aside from that, and a hammer for later levels, you have no actual tools that need grabbing. For example, your character can walk up to a paint can to load up their roller and walk up to a wall to paint instantly. The difficulty lies mainly with your recycling can because there’s only one and you need to share. Meaning, you need to carefully plan what you and other players will be doing. Figure out what order you will be doing things as grout is needed to put down first before your tiles, or glue needs to be applied to the walls before you put your wallpaper.
The recycling can is portable and you need it to strip old flooring or walls or to pick up messes, but you also need to use it to pour mixing stuff in it. You can’t do both at the same time so the can needs to be emptied outside after use in order to switch to something else. The can also needs to be emptied when it’s full from recycling, or re-filled if empty when using it for mixing.
Most of the time, you won’t even have all of the items needed to do your work from the start. A delivery man will show up at the entrance and ring the doorbell. You need to respond quickly before they leave (don’t worry they return later) and grab your stuff! It’s pretty easy knowing the difference between a roll of carpet, a square box of tiles, or a long box of laminate. However, sometimes the patterns printed on one side of the boxes are hard to discern if they resemble others too closely. Perhaps that’s supposed to add to the challenge because you can add the wrong wallpaper to the walls but can always strip it and redo it.
Where the game starts to resemble Overcooked, in a good way, are the crazy apartments where people would never actually live. Moreover, there are levels where there are lava pits to avoid and ice that will send you flying. There were also slight changes in theme, such as with how the doors to rooms looked like. Not every room had a door in all directions so the apartment can be quite the maze to navigate, especially when only one player can walk through a door at a time.
Speaking of doors, I hate them. You have to make a point to open them and can’t do so while holding something else, even if it’s just trash for the recycling can that you can’t get rid of. Which means there were times I need the other player to bail me out. Other times you can swing through them but they can get stuck on objects or people that are in the way. Then there were times where I accidentally punched the doors right off their hinges which is probably for the best, even if you need to put them back before ending the level. Something that would have abated my hate for doors I think would be to have opening or closing them be its own separate button.
The difficulty of the floors you’re on in the skyscraper isn’t so much linear as it is just random. There are a total of 30 apartments (levels) and you use an elevator to progress to another floor. Somewhere in the middle of the game was the hardest level which included an annoying little dog that would chase your around or knock stuff over. It was chaotic, but I also appreciated the fact that the levels were so varied. That, and the fact that there’s a high score system, keeps me coming back for more. You only need a certain amount of points to get 1 star out of 3 to pass that level so I love trying to perfect every one of them. Stars are also added up overall so you may need a certain amount to unlock the next area.
There are strategies you can form in order to get things done as quickly as possible. Each player can work in a separate room or you can help each other out in the same room. Some rooms are smaller than others so it can get a bit crowded, especially if there are also objects in that room that you need with you. Where to place those objects is something you need to take into account as well, because putting them in front of a door isn’t the greatest idea. You may come across some furniture that you need to move out of the way to access the floors and the walls but it’s nice that you don’t have to put them back afterward.
When you’re done renovating, you do need to “tidy up” withing the time limit before finishing the level! I mean, it’s the respectable thing to do anyway. You can throw all things, and people, which can create a mess such as paint spills. Or just flat out run into your paint cans from rushing and knock them over. Then you can slip and fall in those paint spills and lose a lot of time that you could have used, you know, doing something productive. If that happens you need to use your portable recycling can, as mentioned above, or go outside with it. All objects that you used must also be brought outside so that nothing is left inside the apartment. I like putting say, my carpet, to the curb once I’m done with it anyway to get it out of the way and to see what’s left.
All in all I really enjoyed playing Tools Up and it offers several hours of gameplay with your friends and family. You might not even want to strangle your loved ones with such nice classical music playing in the background in-game. The complaints that I had have even already been addressed on Steam and will coming with a new patch for the Switch soon. It’s well worth the price and it’s also the perfect time of year to play those wintry levels right now! Here’s a link to purchase the game on the Nintendo eShop. Overcooked 2 also currently has festive free DLC you can find out more about in my article here. If you’re already a fan of Overcooked, you’ll definitely love Tools Up!