4.0 hours played
Written 5 days ago
I must start with a warning - DO NOT buy this game on Playstation. (If you are on Steam, you probably won't, but just in case you are on another platform and searching for reviews...) The port has game-breaking issues. My recommendation is only for the PC version.
I originally impulse bought this game on Playstation and lost about two hours of gameplay, then ended up repurchasing it on Steam. I was a bit worried how it would run on the Deck, because sometimes 3D games by smaller studios are not very... optimized, but it actually ran well, even when docked to the TV and the resolution increased a bit. (I could not crank it up all the way, but it was an experience still superior to playing it on my PS5, surprisingly enough.)
With that out of the way, this is a small, open-world exploration game with no combat. You are a little girl who runs around on a fictional Mediterranean island and tries to save the nature preserve from a real estate developer who teamed up with the mayor. You team up with your best friend and also enlist the aid of pretty much everyone else. The game has a cartoon aesthetic, but the island is still realistic and recognizably Mediterranean, also in small details. You take photos of animals, mostly birds, work on things like signage about the animals, picking up trash, even a bit of carpentry. It's a very cute and chill game, and I really liked the aspect of trying to find real-life animal species both by sight, by sound, and by looking in the appropriate places for them.
I think the main audience is kids, but I was looking for something relaxing to play that's open-world that doesn't have combat, and this hit exactly the right spot for me. (I like combat, but I don't always feel like it.) It's like Sable or Caravan SandWitch, but on a smaller scale. Similarly, there is no fall damage either, though this is mostly achieved not by being able to fall from huge heights - like in those two games -, but rather by not being able to fall at all.
Talking to the inhabitants of the island is also fun, they have their own mini storylines that develop across the few days of the plot. They are a really varied bunch, along multiple different dimensions (ethnicity, sexuality, immigration status etc.) which was very nice to see in a small-town setting. I was also very pleasantly surprised to find a trans guy with top surgery scars just entirely randomly - he doesn't say anything about being trans, he just exists and says he likes to chill and eat ice cream. That was heartwarming.
It is easy to progress very fast in the main storyline, but if you missed any animals or various tasks, you can complete all that post-game too. I always like to complete everything before moving on, but here I found the plot progressing even if I didn't necessarily want it to. There are no puzzles, just exploration and collectathon elements. I loved the exploration, the island is genuinely really cool to discover.
I think the game takes about 5 hours to 100% - my gameplay is a bit shorter because I skipped through the beginning very fast, as I'd already played it on Playstation before the game gave up on me. (It is a testament to how much fun it is that I was willing to restart on a different platform.)
I really liked it and would especially recommend it as a family game. My son ended up watching me play too; he is a young adult, so also probably older than the intended audience :), but he found it relaxing as well. A lot of kids' games are honestly annoying for adults, but this one is truly fun for all ages, I think.
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Source of the game: Bought with my own money, in fact I bought it twice