Grow Home Review by: Zlinqx - 6/10
Go home bud, ur drunkNSo Grow Home. This was a neat little project I'd grown an interest in after having seen many reviewers praise it as a breath of fresh air, and even more so when I heard it was actually produced by Ubisoft. So when I heard the PS4 port of the would be free for PS+ users I was actually somewhat excited (which is something I rarely say about the PS+ lineups).
So I got it and finally got to play it, and what do I have to say about it? Well...
Creating a living world with so littleThe graphics are unsuprisingly (since this was a low budget project) actually fairly simplistic for PS4 standards. The game being made in unity and the textures being almost sort of blocky but that doesn't stop the world from looking almost a bit awe inspiring with lots of colour and life filling it while at the same time looking very serene and peaceful. With everything the giant plants, the ocean to the caves and the creatures within the world, awakening your sense of exploration and giving a sense of calm. I would say if anything doing so much with this little makes it all the more impressive.
The art style overall is definietly one of the strengths of the game. The only real problem I had with the graphics and I'm not sure if this is exclusive to the PS4 port or it's the case with the PC version as well is that partially clipping through objects is common. And while it hasn't bugged the game out for me or made scaling these surfaces impossible it's somewhat of an immersion breaker when you see half the character being inside the plant even with it being a low budget project.
The soundtrack, or well rather the ambient sound helps drive home the sense of serenity and vastness of the world. There's not really much of actual music aside from the main theme that plays at the main menu but I feel that for the kind of experience this creates ambient sounds fit better overall and while not extravagant definietly does the job. Same can be said for the sound effects, it's especially charming to hear the beeps of the main character BUD as he traverses the world and even more when he "accidentally" plumets to his death :3... Or maybe that last one is just me.
Story? Something about growing a plant idkThere really isn't much of a story in game. You're given instuctions by MOM which acts as a mother to the main character BUD (a tiny robot) which it isn't actually explained what exactly she is (presumably the database of a ship) to grow this giant beanstalk like plant. How do you do this you ask? By climbing atop vines of the plant. Attaching yourself to the flowers and then pressing a button to watch them shot out and you then try to connect it to various floating islands, which the plant gets nourishment from and grows or something (why do I feel like there's some kind of innuendo to this...)
While it doesn't seem to make much sense the story really isn't the focus of the game, and honestly that's fine. I never found myself caring much about the motivation of why I was doing this, I was more busy seeing and experiencing the world which is the main draw of the game.
I will add though that the relationship between MOM and BUD is somewhat charming , and she will provide the occasional smart remark like saying "you're doing well BUD" if you fall to your death or humorous commentary on various plants and animals which you can analyze (more on that later). It is a nice touch.
Well implemented controls but with gameplay that ends up being somewhat repetetive.So one thing you will notice when you start moving around the world is that BUD has trouble walking up right, in fact you will probably have trouble getting him from point A to point B at first. This was done seemingly on purpose and seeing BUD walking around trying to stay upright does look kind of adorable but makes controlling him somewhat different and more challenging than you'd expect to be a source of frustation. I actually found it to be something that you adjust to fairly quickly and doesn't prevent you from being able to contol the character, in some ways even adds to the charm of the game. Something commendable on the developers part.
The gameplay itself mainly consists of climbing the plant and growing it further by connecting it to the glowing islands. The climbing mechanic itself is suprisingly well done being simplistic as you simply use the triggers to grab surfaces to stick to them, most anything can be climbed (even if it seems to conflict with the graphics due to clipping sometimes >.>). This is really what the main bulk of the gameplay comes down to.
There are two sort sidequests aside from growing the plant. The first one is to gather various diamond like gems. These are found on various islands and even some being hidden inside secret caves. There are a 100 of them and for every 20 you collect you gain a new upgrade which while usually small and not required to beat the game can still prove helpful.
The second is that you're able to grab various plants and animals that roam the islands to one of the various teleporters (which also acts like spawn/checkpoints) at which point M.O.M will analyze it and give you a short piece of trivia on it which is usually somewhat humorous. This can be somewhat challenging especially with trying to drag large plants or non cooperating animals (cough that one chicken I climed a mountain while holding in one hand that decided it would rather kill itself cough) However this proves to be relatively pointless sidequest though since it doesn't actually help you gain anything besides a trophy, meaning it's more for the personal achievment. But that seems to become moot when it's mainly just frustrating when you seemingly drop the chicken for the 30th time it ends up boiling down to boring repetition.
That's the keyword that sums up the game: repetition. While growing the plant and exploring the world can be fun things at first as the game doesn't really change things up much, it starts to wear thin which is something I could've let slide if the game wasn't already very short as it is only talking a few hours to beat. The game really serves to be a short distraction, fun and exciting at first but starting to grow old and ultimately becoming forgetable by the end. While having a really nice looking art style there just really isn't much else to it.
A nice little distraction but nothing revolutionaryThe art style alone may be enough to convince some people to check this game out as it isn't too expensive and in a lot of ways it's really what makes the game interesting. Those looking for some addicting 3d platformer action will be sorely disappointed by the lack of depth and the repetetive nature of the game. While those who go in with an open mind will find a short relaxing and somewhat entertaining experience but which ultimately proves to be pointless.
Graphics
9 Sound
8 Addictive
5 Depth
3 Story
6 Difficulty
4
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