Delightful… and Buggy
Another month, another game to analyse. This time I played Garden Story. It’s a cutesy, casual RPG about a grape who goes on a hero’s adventure. Concord the grape meets a bunch of people as he does his best to follow in the footsteps of his idol(?), Plum, and takes on the mantle of Guardian.
The game was developed by Picogram and published by Rose City Games, although when you hit Pico in the Steam store, it links you straight to Rose. I suppose they are one and the same? Unfortunately, Rose City Games has since closed shop, according to their website’s news section.
Loops and Mechanics
The game’s core loop is a simplified RPG loop — Kill mobs, do quests, gain levels to get stronger, and progress in the main story. No surprises there, simple and effective. However, while the loop and many ideas of the game were great, some of the mechanics left me out in the cold, so to speak.
Minuses
I was never much of a fan of the whole ‘save on sleep/day cycle reset’ situation. I was happy when My Time At Sandrock introduced the ability to save whenever, especially coming from Stardew Valley and Portia, which didn’t have that luxury. Here, in Garden Story, I missed the ability to save freely.
What made it especially clunky was that the time would move slowly for a segment like the morning, and then stop until I crossed a barrier to another area. I mean, what? When I wanted to move on with my days, I had to find a bench and skip back and forth until evening. At least, devs, give me the option to skip days by sleeping when I wish to!
Another thing that happened quite frequently was that I got lost in what to do. Now, I’m no newbie when it comes to games, but something about missing a clear quest log just confused the heck out of me. Finding that board in town was rather cumbersome in such a casual game, I even thought about just jotting down the few dailies I got in my notebook. And then, when I figured out where to go, I got quest blocked by my old nemesis — having to have the item on me for deliveries, while other things were done straight from the storage.
And then there is the weapon swapping. Who on earth decided that it’s a good idea to force the player to navigate menus in the middle of action? I found the best method for me to beat the enemies (read: slimes) was to do their gimmick and then go back to my sword for the rest. And even without that, all the tools are used throughout the game, so why make it so convoluted? Can’t I just scroll through them or something..?
(It has to be said that I never once used the quick slots, and so have no idea if that would have made the situation better.)
Plusses
While whining about the save system and the time, I did appreciate the benches. It’s just too bad I only found out about their ability to speed up time late in the game. It made the skipping of days and reaching night way less frustrating.
I hoped I could’ve skipped the dialogue. But at least the devs gave us a speeding function by holding the button down. It’s just a little bit of a drag to have to listen to the same long lines every time I wish to sell some glass I found on the beach.
What I really liked, though, was the action economy. Allotting each action, from attacks to dodges and blocking, to one resource made it very simple to manage my character. It’s also a rather friendly way to introduce people to a system, especially when combined with the simplistic stats scheme.
The village (or garden) dailies were connected to the character progression, which I appreciated. How many times do we go on some random sidequest and it does very little or nothing to help us on our journey? Well, not in Garden Story. Repetitive as they may be, the only way to get that sweet tier 4 weaponry is to level the villages. What better to motivate the player to do some content, no? Though I have to say I wish I could’ve picked up dailies from multiple villages.
I also liked the way each weapon (tool) was valid in all the stages of the game. While I opted for the sword when I could, I found myself using the other weapons to deal with niche situations, breaking gatherables, etc. A great way to make sure that no weapon is obsolete too quickly.
Systems and progression
Garden Story’s progression routes are the usual — Kill, gather, do quests, repeat. Travel through zones that get harder and provide you with different challenges each. The game is simple… and very repetitive.
What I found somewhat tiresome was the fact that there was no way to cycle through gatherables, at least not as far as I am aware. I was stuck collecting sticks and pebbles when I only wanted the driftwood or what have you in the middle of the pile.
One system I quite enjoyed was the fishing scheme, though I hoped for a more challenging minigame. Oh, and that the Player character wouldn’t always turn to face the camera when catching something. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I cast my line into the void because of that particular design choice.
I also didn’t really explore the various health potion alternatives. It just kind of made sense to nab the fastest one, I think it is the second one you can get. And later on, when you get the booster for it, it is a no-brainer. I didn’t even use the buffing shop waters in my travels, as I didn’t feel the need to do so.
Levels and world
I liked the idea behind the word a lot. I mean, four villages themed by the different seasons? What’s not to like? And while the enemy variations were more or less fun, I would have wanted to fight something other than slime 80% of the time. It doesn’t matter what kind of a hat you slap on it, slime is still slime.
On the other hand, I thought that the dungeons were a great success. Each village has one, and they all have different puzzles to figure out, and the dungeon teaches you what to expect in the first rooms. You even get to use the respective weapons you get from the area to beat them. Of course, once you have done them once, the luster vanishes quickly. They are fixed, so no randomized content for you, no matter how many times you go in to collect materials.
The boss fights were fun too, they all had their own gimmicks and mechanics. And in the final push, the puzzles and bosses kicked it up a notch, which was a lovely surprise. Doing them this way allowed me to learn the necessary things and then apply all my knowledge. Good job!
Player experience
When I first booted up the game, I thought ‘aww, how delightful!’. The simple and clean pixel art with a lovely color palette was a joy to observe. I even chuckled at the suspiciously phallic-shaped grasses under my feet when I oriented myself in the world for the first time. The art is enhanced by the peaceful music. Whoever did that, nice job!
One thing that I thought brought some character to the story was the way the devs used bouncing letters. The emphasis couldn’t have been clearer when the word undulates instead of sitting quietly in its line. I might just use that in my own projects.
Should you play this game, prepare for heavy lore dumping straight from the gates. I can’t even recall the whole thing, as it was just simply too much for me to take in. Same with the excessive dialogue from random NPCs. I mean, really, I don’t have to hear your story every time I want to sell something!
One thing that bugged me was the notion that while the achievements were easy enough to get, killing things in the dungeons didn’t count toward them. Say what now? Why on earth wouldn’t you allow me to get mob kills while grinding materials? That doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Bugs
And then there were the bugs. I nearly quit because of one of them.
The first one is a known problem within the community — the bloody flute. If you dare play it, your game crashes. So, better keep the pipes covered lest you open a portal to the magical land of alt+f4. This flute is a tool like the shield and seed pouch, something that would’ve brought more to the game, as far as I can imagine. Yet now, I did not get to experience it at all. Why would I start working for the game, trying not to do the exact things suggested by the community to be able to use this one item? No, thank you. It is better if you sit there, at the bottom of the pack.
The flute wasn’t the thing that nearly made me quit. I was about 80% done when my controller went haywire. It had had problems with the game before, with it not recognizing the device after automatic shut-offs. But this time it just wouldn’t read inputs correctly.
I had to recruit my husband to fix it for me, and thank heavens I did. He went into the files and found out that the game had made a faulty settings profile, so to speak. That then meant that the game didn’t really know what the heck my controller was, and so began to do all sorts of wacky things like sipping health while pressing the dodge button. Mr. V kindly ‘cleared the cache’ and forced the game to make another settings file, which worked wonders.
All this made me wonder why the developers didn’t fix the problems before closing shop. As far as I understand, they had one more game coming up before the end. If it were me, I would’ve prioritized the polish and fixes of the previous games over something new. I can just hope their last game wasn’t as buggy as this one.
UI, feedback, and other things
Some of the design choices were weird, and felt rushed. One example of such a choice would be the menus that worked with True/False statements instead of the usual On/Off. As if it would’ve been so difficult to just switch the placeholder words to something a little more consumer-friendly. There was also no borderless windowed mode, which grated me a little. But hey, I consider it a luxury at this point.
The menus themselves wouldn’t have been that bad, if not for the abysmal keybinds. Who on earth decided to use a, z, x, and c as the defaults? Why not use WASD and Enter like the rest of us normal folks? One of the greatest fooleries of any creative endeavour (in my humble opinion) is the attempt at inventing the wheel over. Guys, c’mon. We know the buttons, stop trying to be unique about it — this is not the place to do that!
Then there were the NPCs. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling undervalued by the ones I’m supposed to save when I play games. What was this crude attitude of the ‘cutesy’ people of the villages about, even? More often than not, I was faced with the sentiment that ‘Oh well, since the Real Guardian is not here, you’ll have to do, I guess’’. Looking down on my poor grape was real, oof! I’ll even take the Final Fantasy NPCs that give me a few gold and a pat on the back for saving the world, AGAIN, rather than this.
Other notes
Sometimes I couldn’t figure out the weapons’ hitboxes, the sickle was especially troublesome for some reason. Maybe it was the two hits, or maybe I’m just bad at lining it up. Who knows. I saw some other people talk about the aiming issues as well, so I guess I’m not alone with my sentiments. The spawn points of some fishing holes were also off, as the targeting works only vertically and horizontally, so some points were not hittable.
There was a nice, though very mainstream, system of teleporting that came in later in the game. While nice as a thought, it doesn’t help much when looking for the pads takes more time than just going on foot. Which is why I hoped that the map would have provided some markers on where I might find said pads.
The game’s system for different playstyles was a memory-based thing. You gather memories around the world, while adventuring, and then slot those in by sitting in your bed. While some ideas were cool, like customizing your favourite weapons’ functionality, I mostly just put my points into stamina and speed. The sword is just too overpowered, and the quick dew jar is a no-brainer in the end with the boost it gets.
Around the world of Garden Story, you can find these bubbles that reward you with stat points when you break them. While this was a nice puzzle and a thing for collectors like myself, I found that things like Mind meant very little to me. All I needed was a bit of health, stamina, and that’s it. If you know what Mind does in this game, do tell me!
Final Thoughts
While the game was generally enjoyable, some things really grated on me the wrong way. Telling me that ‘Concord (the Player Character) feels validated’ when I was just beginning my journey really got me on my hind legs. It’s going to be one of those games, isn’t it? Just a word of advice from a long-time gamer, if I may — please, don’t tell me how I feel about some things. It just breaks the vibe.
Another thing that got me to raise my eyebrows was that every character was sexless. Everyone was a ‘They/Them’ in this game. Now, I understand this choice on some level, but I’m old-fashioned enough to prefer my hes and shes. Then again, I suppose plants tend to be rather genderless for the most part. It did confuse me sometimes, though. Reading the long-winded dialogues and someone being addressed as ‘they’ made my brain wonder if there had been more people than just the one turnip somewhere.
All this being said, I’m glad we got the game on sale. In my opinion, it is definitely not worthy of the €20 price tag it sports at the moment. The game has many bugs, and not nearly enough content to warrant such a cost in today’s market. I mean, I 100% it in 22 hours, and could’ve done it faster if I didn’t stop to level the villages for no reason. But as far as a cozy introduction to RPG-style games goes, it’s not a complete bust.
That’s it for now. Feel free to drop your own views of the game either in the comments, or even visit my X. That’s where I dwell daily, and that’s where you have the best chances to find out what’s new in my lair.
Have a good one folks,
Mrs. V