a lot of people messaged me to check out Cozy Grove and after playing it for a few days i gotta say that the vibes are Therebut there are too many things that leave me annoyed each play session to make this the chill game i was told it is.
i know a lot of people love the time gated aspect of it but it just makes me feel like the game has a baby leash on me and jerks back on it harshly whenever i try to make more progress than it wants. this pairs poorly with the fact that a ton of fetch quests give you no story progression so you can end a day of play with only a few finished Where’s Waldo puzzles under your belt and every single ghost mystery untouched. in fact, i honestly think that if this were advertised as a find the object game with a story then i’d like it more because i wouldn’t be expecting something else. i’m a fan of spooky vibes and story driven games, not so much a fan of endless repetitive fetch quests that sometimes take days. getting randomly stuck on pieces of scenery, searching for single off-white leaves on the cluttered off-white ground, and storage problems that involve running back and forth across the island constantly unless you want to sell/burn everything only to be asked for that exact thing a second later and having to wait days for it to show up again don’t help.
the story is interesting but also, and i know this is probably an unpopular opinion, i don’t really like most of the bears? like, i find them interesting and i want to see their backstories but as i told my friend, all these grown ass adults seem pretty okay with the fact that a lost and isolated child is trapped on their death island doing their bidding until they figure their shit out. i get that in this world Spirit Scouts are a thing and also that everyone is trapped here because they’re deeply flawed people too in their own heads or weighed down by their own problems to move on, but also that’s a dark part of this story that i wish they explored more. like, just a glimmer of the bears realizing, “oh shit, we have to work this through not just for ourselves but also for this kid who can’t get home until the island lets them go or whatever” would do a world of wonders for me. it would make it feel like they actually cared for the scout (which would make me more willing to do fetch quests), it would make them think about the passage of time and life after being stuck in limbo for so long (imagine suddenly remembering that children grow and people learn? how much would that fuck someone up who has effectively been standing still mentally and spiritually for years and years?) and it would also probably put some interesting spins on their progression. idk, i just think that the characters having more drive and connection would make the story tighter.
or maybe, “it’s your responsibility to fix everyone’s problems with no support of your own,” is just a specific thing i’m picking up from this game because of my own ghostly backstory. who can say.
i know this all seems pretty harsh but i do think it’s a beautiful game with a lot of interesting potential and i’m always down to support indie titles. i’m only a little over a week in so if you’ve played this, let me know what you think!
[ID: A screenshot of the banner for the game Hyper Light Drifter above a notification saying “Hyper Light Drifter is ready!”. End ID]
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[ID: A screenshot from Hyper Light Drifter, showing the drifter standing on the edge of a mountain and looking over the land at a castle in the distance. End ID]
[ID: Comment 1: I think so much of the difficulty (as a kid) comes from playing in 2 player mode with a sibling. Friendly fire seems stupid? Now you can deliberately sabotage your sibling (for fun I guess???). Switching characters seems repetitive? Now you’re stuck as C3PO while your little sister does all the fun stuff and you unlock doors. Puzzles too easy? Now you have to cajole your teammate into doing The Thing They Have To Do
Comment 2:“Occasionally the game will auto-aim on your allies - that’s not amazing” That’s actually a great feature to take revenge on your brother after he dragged you off the map with the camera for the SIXTH FUCKING TIME.
Comment 3: >“I’m not sure why you would ever want to target your co-op partner.” Clearly you never played this with a younger brother.
Reply 1: Dude, how dare you. That hit in the nostalgia…… Reply 2: As the younger brother, it was my favorite mechanic to beat the living shit out of my older brother and loosing all our studs and him getting frustrated cause he was a perfectionist. Reply 3: At least half of the arguments I have with my brother begin in this fashion Reply 4: Nah more like after the accidental hit we start fighting in real life till someone’s crying. End ID]
