Cozy Grove Review
Release Date: April 8th, 2021
Developer: Spry Fox
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Price: $14.99
There's no doubt the influence that Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon have had in giving farming simulators - as loose as that word "farming" has become - to provide not only an open experience where you can provide a piece of land with crops and cultivate, but be transported into another world where humans take a step back and the more natural aspects of life and the fauna tend to go to center stage, either being the playable character or being a large, if not main, part of the game's narrative and structure. The flexibility of the genre has given the likes of an amalgam of titles that do their best to blend myriad styles for unique gameplay, and even the tones have lent themselves to bright and happy to dark and gloomy. Cozy Grove feels one-of-a-kind in a lot of ways that perfectly sits between bright and dark, like if Animal Crossing and Don't Starve had a baby that wanted to give you a spooky aesthetic with cute animals that help convey the tranquility of an otherwise dilapidated island you find yourself upon. Even with the cozy nature and naming, however, Cozy Grove isn't exactly smooth sailing, though overall does provide an enjoyable time that's absolutely worth checking out.
Walking in the shoes of a Spirit Scout, you’re not the first to arrive to Cozy Grove to help the ghosts that dwell there make up for lost time and move on. It's akin to Spiritfarer in how you'll make friends to help those that have gone on into their second life move into it peacefully, but with much more emphasis on being a friendly neighbor that ends up in what they'll call a new home and family as you bring color back to an otherwise bleak island. The island seems small at first and it doesn't seem like Cozy Grove will have much to offer within it, but as a game that's meant to played in short spans over a long period of time (it can be roughly 40+ hours when you're actually done with it), the game continues to expand each time you play by giving new spirits to meet up with and help out with the issues they have. Areas that seem closed off suddenly reveal themselves as each day passes by and with each task completed comes with it a color palette that revives the greyed out flora around a spirit's accompanying radius. Things will never fully connect, however, and it's because of this you'll learn how to craft as you naturally progress and find recipes throughout your time on the island that will help you create lamps that can expand the light to cover more obscure areas. Covering these unlit areas will not only bring the surrounding areas further to life, but also help with growing any plants you may put down or any other "pets" that can be given food in exchange for items you may find useful. Technical mishaps start to occur and be rather noticeable once islands are expanded and light floods the terrain, however, and having played both Switch and PC versions, this is an inherent problem with the optimization of the game, though any lag or stutters seem to be more frequent on Switch. Talking to the campfire tends to freeze sentences halfway, running too fast will cause pop-in and flashes of light as flooring quickly loads in, and when a task is completed and color is brought back, the slowdown is immense. Stutters intermittently occur from place to place, while fishing, checking menus, etc., and this has happened both pre and post day one patch. It's a frustrating oddity that makes you wonder why a game that looks and plays the way it does is even having an issue like this other than a potential memory leak or it simply being what's known as the "Unity Curse".
A lot of what you'll be doing in Cozy Grove really is really based on finding lost items, much like how the spirits themselves are "lost". It's a repetitive task of what is essentially hide and seek to do on a daily basis, and even if you do end up playing the game how the developers intended - which is to take breaks and only play for a set amount of time per day to not suffer from fatigue - it can still feel tedious as time goes on when you're back in a loop that only feels marginally different each time you jump back in. Nothing is ever drastic enough outside of getting new tools or crafting materials that may feel like it actually opens up gameplay a bit more, but visually and mechanically you've essentially figured out how Cozy Grove works during your first "day". What makes things even more tedious to me is the fact that each quest will typically have a hint as to what they need and/or where to find a particular object, but typically these requested objects that need to be found in bulk are never where they initially say they are (for example: hidden behind a stick with two skulls) and instead are scattered in the most random places. Thankfully, to make things less frustrating, you can see a spirit near by your campsite that will be more than happy to help you reveal the location of a hidden object in exchange for 100 coins. In-game achievements, which are presented in the form of badges, alleviate some of the more mundane aspects of Cozy Grove's day-to-day repetition by giving you things to work towards and rewarding you rather handsomely with the important things you'll need to make the most out of your gameplay and progression: Money and Gemstones. While money will appear randomly through random diggings and whenever a location regains its color, these typically, depending on the color, will be scraps compared to the hundreds if not thousands you can attain through redeeming each rewards through the badge system as well as donating your findings to a spirit that likes to collect things. Basically everything you find and/or use can be donated to some capacity, so it's best to go here after finding fish, vegetables, fruits, materials, or virtually anything for the first time to reap the rewards this way as well. The rewards won't always be in exchange for currency, as you'll acquire quartz and other stones as well as recipes and more rare items useful for crafting, but it's a quick and extremely helpful way to progress and reward the player for their work.
Cozy Grove has a lot of smart ideas that are hindered by its restrictions and lack of optimization, but it's best to be seen as an Animal Crossing Lite with a Don't Starve sort of dressing to it, so while you'll be able to craft and place down objects, make food, and utilize items as you would as if you were trying to survive or simply "spruce up your island", there are little to no repercussions to doing things at your leisure. There's no health system, no hunger system, no immediate hurry to get things done except for a few time-limited requests (these usually can span anywhere between a few hours to a few days, which more often than not is more than enough time to complete whatever is asked), and the game simply lets you play how you like and at your own pace. Be warned, however, that once 5AM rolls around you'll pass out immediately and begin the following day where everything will reset. Time is tied to your system clock, though, so the nice thing is that you're more than welcome to time travel as needed, though there's no doubt that due to the repetition you'll find yourself naturally clocking out for the day anyways before coming back later on. Cozy Grove undoubtedly feels cozy, though even if you're playing as the developers intended - which I tried - it's hard to not feel like the game is pulling the plug a little early.
Even if Cozy Grove does feel like a strict parent as you play, at the very least it's a cute little escape into a smaller island that grows little by little as you make yourself acquainted. It's a natural way to cause a progression system without overwhelming the UI or giving the player more menus than is necessary for information that can be presented visually. A lot of what Cozy Grove wants you to do is to constantly see rather than read up on stats or many words, which is great, but because of so much visual information the clutter of the island really becomes problematic once it blends in with your inventory and questlines. Objects disappear as you find yourself behind them, but it's often when you find yourself running into seemingly nothing until you walk back out and notice there is, in fact, something large that somehow hadn't come into view before just because you got close enough. It's because of the clutter that it's hard to find distinct places, and instead any memory of location really just comes down to certain landmarks or remembering how many steps and/or what direction you came from outside of your camp. Even with its overrun foliage, though, it's a place that exudes charm in just about every corner as you meet endearing spirits that welcome you with open arms and make you feel at home as a place you found yourself stranded in ends up becoming your new humble abode.
Cozy Grove lives up to its name providing a cozy experience, but underneath it all also dwells a basement of frustration that coincides with its strict quest limit and repetitive nature that limits just how much relaxation you can have during a play session. Thankfully on the Switch, much like Animal Crossing, you can time travel if you'd like, but even the developers heavily insist on avoiding the method as the game is meant to be played in short bursts, which is understandable when it's designed that way, but the lack of flexibility to play it any other way when every mission can be done in just a few minutes and you've taken care of all requests in less than an hour make it a questionable design choice when people enjoy to really escape reality and immerse themselves in games like these, especially when in Cozy Grove's case it's immensely cute and hard to put down until you're forced to.
PROS:
Incredibly relaxing further complemented by the cute yet spooky art
The combination of Animal Crossing and Don’t Starve make for a match made in heaven
A great minimal UI with an intuitive interface that fits well for both handheld, TV, touch-screen, and button inputs
CONS:
Time restrictions can be frustrating when you really want to binge it
The repetitive nature of hide-and-seek type quests can get boring after a while
The Switch version has huge optimization issues
A huge thank you to Spry Fox for sending us a copy of Cozy Grove for the purposes of this review!