Unfortunately, colour can also cause some stuttering, but not enough to greatly impact gameplay. When places do become colourful, the contrast with the black-and-white is impressive, and 'painting' the island, by putting lamps down to extend light, for example, can be cool. Placeable items, however, are pretty fun and decorative, from furniture to potted plants, but they don't have any interactable elements, which is a shame.Ĭozy Grove's art style is the highlight, being a hand-drawn style like Don't Starve with a similar isometric viewpoint. You can only deposit one at a time and then you have to restart the entire dialogue, which artificially extends game time and becomes exhausting.

There are hundreds, but none feel unique (except perhaps some rarer fish), and the process of depositing them into the game's museum equivalent is a nightmare. You can only harvest certain resources in colour, and it's much easier to spot items, so while I love the creativity here, it falls flat, and makes gameplay a chore.Īnother issue I have with the game is the lifeless collectibles.

This greyscale turns to colour after finishing quests, but then resets the following day. This inertia of the bears seems to be so you know where to find them every day to get missions, but it affects the level of immersion I got from playing, since things never really changed. The island doesn't feel your own, for one, with static bears and a greyscale colour palette. Although, if you like a routine that you can get into for twenty to forty minutes a day, this game could offer you hours of content.īefore you say 'Well, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the same!', there's something missing here for me. It gets repetitive pretty fast, unfortunately. Find this lost book, bring me three uncommon fish, retrieve my carrot from this imp - little spirits - that sort of thing. In fact, the gameplay is based around them, as each bear you unlock will have a fetch quest for you, which can be done at your leisure. It begins with a simple, non-binary character customiser, and then gives you a fetch quest. The game is a slow-burner, but it's supposed to be. In handheld, the game runs about the same. It is playable, but you might find it annoying, and it certainly should run better than it does, given it isn't graphically-intensive. Cozy Grove struggles on Switch, with major FPS drops after turning in quests, and general stuttering when running around. It does, however, suffer from a repetitive gameplay loop, with not enough unique activities to be doing each day.įirstly, a note on performance. It's a cute little game, with a great art-style and innovative use of colour. Cozy Grove is a life sim that's a little bit Animal Crossing and a little bit Where's Wally? Your character is a Scout, and has become stranded on an island inhabited by friendly ghost-bears who always seem to be losing things.

Cozy grove review