Cute little game drawing from classic Zelda, but without as much of the charm and puzzling that I think made those games great. Plays mostly fine, and the low-key management/upgrading village stuff is nice for a change but makes it a bit of a chore sometimes, particularly early on when finding some resources is harder than others.

Tries to engage with an environmental message, but I couldn't follow what was what until kinda late on - just some confusing naming so it washed over me a bit, despite being quite basic in the end.

Decent fun, but nothing particularly stand-out for me.

Un indie que, a pesar de no destacar mucho, tampoco lo hace mal. La estetica es bonita, la jugabilidad, a pesar de ser pesada en un inicio, no está mal, y la historia y mecanicas están bien pulidas. Mi principal problema es con el grindeo necesario para ciertos logros, pero al obviarlo y avanzar en el juego con normalidad, pasa a ser algo bastante secundario. Aún así, una vez acabandolo no hay nada que te haga sentir que merece seguir siendo jugado, incentivandote a buscar el 100%, o intentar acabarlo de nuevo.

There are some games which are difficult for me to sum up, but Garden Story is not one of them. It's classic Zelda with Stardew Valley chores and Cave Story-esque aesthetics, and from start to finish my impression never deviated: it's cozy, relaxing, and welcoming.

What I find most refreshing about Garden Story is that it tells the story of the Hero's Journey is a way quite unlike most other RPGs; the catalyst for the journey is not the death of your parents, the destruction of your village, or exile or abandonment. Instead, the main character is chosen to become a Guardian who protects and assists the inhabitants of the Grove. And as you travel to various settlements within the grove, some of which are insular and unwelcoming, all of which are wrestling with their own struggles, you not only help them with their problems but also help them reconnect with old friends, heal old wounds, and lighten old baggage. This is a Hero's Journey that quite atypically happens entirely while the hero is firmly rooted in their community. And viewed through that lens, the tedious daily chores that feel like busywork and filler make thematic sense! I totally understand if that's not your thing, but it's very apt to have a big part of the playtime be running errands for your community, because they are you first and primary duty as a Guardian, and also because a stronger community makes you stronger as well (quite literally, as the available shop upgrades are tied to how many tasks you are able to complete).

The dev team crafted a really colorful world here. There's a lot of cool lore and worldbuilding - even though some of it is communicated a little clunkily - and each little town you visit has its own unique personality and its own little cast of memorable characters. And despite the general cozy pleasant vibe of the aesthetic and (very good!) music, there's a melancholic undercurrent to it all. Things in the Grove are slowly falling apart, and the different ways that each individual and each community reacts to this lend the narrative a subtle sense of depth. And while I really don't want to spoil it, I think the final boss of the game is probably one of the most memorable final bosses ever in the way that it organically makes use of a familiar mechanic in a new context, and in a way that is both surprising but also thematically and narratively apt.

While I feel a lot of things in this game work really well, I also feel like some parts of the game are needlessly tedious in ways that don't add to the experience or the 'community' theme. Certain tasks like planting crops or repairing broken items require lots of manual item-switching that slows the game to a crawl. And the save mechanics are rather annoying - the game is divided into 'days' and you can only save when you wake up. While I appreciate that they were trying to divide the game up into bite-sized chunks, only being able to save in the morning had the opposite effect. Due to the endless nature of needing to farm resources, buy new items, build stuff, plant crops, and run errands, you start every day with a sizable to-do list. And having the autosave happen before you can even get started on any of those things is a real momentum-killer. Either that, or you're incentivized to just keep going 'one more day' and 'one more day', but that seems anathema to the laid-back vibes of almost everything else in the game!

As I said at the start, Garden Story is easy to describe and easy to know what you're getting into. It's not epic, it's not addictive, and it definitely can't be rushed through. But if you engage with it on its terms - as a cool little world to immerse yourself in from time to time, and as something that's derivative but also somehow refreshing - then it's definitely worth a shot!

Shelved for now but my initial impression isn't that good - I expected a gardening game but this is more of a Zelda but with an annoying save mechanics.

Also I don't like it when a game presents itself by assaulting you with endless chatter within the first hour.

Get me to whatever the game is as fast as possible, talk to me later and keep it brief.

The aesthetics are a bit of a mess but they're also pretty and charming.

Maybe I'll give it a proper go some day.

Pegue Stardew Valley e tire a parte da fazenda. O que sobra? Lutar, coletar, fazer missões/pedidos, pescar... Bem, isso é Garden Story. Um jogo que poderia ser bem agradável, se não sofresse por uma lentidão de gameplay terrível.

Em Garden Story você é colocado no corpo de Concord, uma pequena uvinha em treinamento para se tornar um Guardião (função essa que, sendo sincero, não passa de um gigantesco faz-tudo), em um mundo assolado por uma condição chamada 'Podridão', que faz com que várias criaturas hostis apareçam e causem estragos por aí.
Quanto a parte artística, nenhuma reclamação - Pixelart simpática e SoundTrack tranquila, combinantes com o estilo mais calmo e fofo do jogo. Quanto a gameplay, o jogo se resume a: acordar todo dia e fazer pedidos e missões das vilas do jogo (que envolvem consertar coisas, entregar materiais, pescar, matar inimigos, etc), enquanto que buscando prosseguir na missão principal do jogo que é entender e eliminar a Podridão. O problema, que é percebido logo no começo, é a lentidão do jogo em absolutamente tudo - desde os vários trechos desnecessariamente longos de diálogos obrigatórios (muitas vezes banais) à lentidão de caminhada e pouca estamina de Concord (que tornam a exploração e lutas mais lentas do que deveriam). O jogo possui uma sistema de evolução de Stats, o que inclui a quantidade de estamina e velocidade do jogador, mas demora muito tempo para evoluir elas a um nível aceitável (e a velocidade de movimento, mesmo evoluindo, não trás grandes melhoras), fazendo com que o começo do jogo seja muito demorado e, até mesmo, estressante.

Caso você goste de jogos mais calmos e relaxantes, sem se importar com a velocidade de progressão e gameplay, nesse caso Garder Story é uma opção bem válida, mas se este não for o seu caso, passe longe!

I'm sure some people will love this game, but this game is frankly not worth my time. So, this game feels like there's no point or purpose to it, and it's trying to be a Zelda like action RPG but it just doesn't fit with the vibe. Most importantly, the objectives seem to not make any sense or not have any particular importance. I just don't understand why I'm wasting my time, whereas if I play, say the game I will play afterwards, Dragonball The Breakers, the sense and feel of the game will be immediately apparent and approachable, this game makes it difficult to approach because it doesn't seem to give you a reason to care, has objectives which don't make sense, and an ARPG in a game that feels more like a Harvest Moon type of game.

You play as Concord, a small grape fresh from the Kindergarden who has just been recruited to be the new guardian of The Grove. Rot is overtaking everything, the different towns are isolated from each other, and the current guardian just took off. Now, it's up to Concord to grow up, toughen up, and save their home!

Visuals

Garden Story is done in adorable pixel art with a nice pastel palette. It's lots of greens and purples and browns, which makes sense for being set in a garden and starring a grape. All of the NPCs are little fruits and veggies as well, and are super cute. There are also some adorable frogs, and other species in the other towns.

Sound Effects + Music

Some of the background music in Garden Story reminds me a lot of the Atelier games. It's cute and upbeat, but it is repetitive. Some locations have their own unique track, but it'll always be that one song every time you go there. Overall, the music is fine.

There's a good variety of sound effects, but again, they're very repetitive since you do the same tasks over and over. There's one sound that sounds suspiciously like the coins from Super Mario Bros...

Gameplay + Controls

Garden Story is an action RPG, so Concord spends a lot of time running around the map and fighting enemies. Combat did feel a little weird in the beginning. Concord can only make two hits at a time before waiting for their energy to replenish. It doesn't take long at all, but it does make fighting slow. I guess it keeps you from just mashing X like I want to do. Concord does get upgraded stamina, but very slowly.

Concord also picks up requests everyday from the village bulletin board. These will be things like killing a certain number of enemies, collecting a resource, or doing something else around town. You'll want to complete all of them each day to level up. In addition to those, there are the main story quests which will be listed on the map with a marker showing you where to go.

There's a lot of side content, but I didn't bother with most of it, which is unusual for me. In addition to saving the grove from the rot, Concord can help rebuild and upgrade all four towns. Some building projects are required as part of the story, but the majority of it can be taken at your own pace. You can easily see where these projects go once you unlock that aspect of the game.

Replayability

Garden Story isn't a game that I'd want to replay. The beginning is way too slow for me to want to slog through it again. It's also super linear, so there's not much else to make a replaying enticing. Unless you want all of the achievements, which isn't something that's important to me.

Overall

I liked Garden Story. It took me awhile to get into, but it eventually grabbed my attention enough to have me finish it. I wish I liked it more, because it is super cute.

This game is fine. There's not much which I absolutely loved and a few things annoyed me a bit. I'd say I enjoyed playing garden story, although I'm just the precise amount of lukewarm on it that this review is ending up surprisingly hard to write.

I can certainly vibe with being a grape, in fact the greenling characters are refreshing in general. The presentation is quite pleasant. I like the soundtrack, although there's nothing memorable within it. Similarly I like the visuals, although there's not much memorable beauty that stands out to me. The vibes probably carry the game away from being bad.

The gameplay is a bit weak, but it was mostly serviceable for the experience. I like the focus on being a helper to the community instead of the standard adventure game hero who forgets every place they leave. There's some satisfying progression, although some of it is a bit tedious. This game serves you one of the staple video game experiences: the fantasy of helping out to fix the world and growing in power.

My favorite part of this game is the perk system. Your character connects with the experiences of previous guardians, and can slot any unlocked ones into a limited capacity of active memories. I love the thematic essence of this system and I think it's design works excellently for the game. It's neat how all at once the game encourages some minor side objectives, strengthens the world, gives you some build choices and an exciting thing to be rewarded with.

Speaking of the world, I like it. It has an interesting identity, although there's nothing about the world that jumped out to me as incredibly fascinating. This is probably the strongest aspect that makes the game work for me. I like how there's different towns you focus on instead of spending the whole game in one.

The town requests are incredibly tedious. Imagine the notice board in stardew valley, but it's tied to the progression of the community and your character. If you want tool upgrades I hope you enjoy wasting your time. At some level this system works for the experience the game is going for, but at some point in the playthrough I simply snapped and just grew sick of them.

The combat is bad. It doesn't feel good and doesn't present any meaningful challenge. You have a dodge roll, which is a nice bare minimum for a game, but you barely need it. The slime enemy you fight most often is a bit annoying. The dungeons are bad. The puzzles are slow and uninteresting.

I hope you like going through these waste of time dungeons multiple times... tool upgrades and some community requests will require materials that can only be gotten from them. Shoutout to the absurd amount of driftwood that the game demands from you... even though you can only get like 4-6 per run of a boring lil dungeon. Shoutout to the 2 incredibly minor shortcuts that would save you at most a few seconds of your life in total... which requires you to rerun a dungeon to unlock them. Shoutout to the combat request that asks you to fight stuff in a dungeon that you can't voluntarily leave. Shoutout to the incredibly slow and tedious block pushing puzzles in that one dungeon, they really shined the 3rd time.

The building mechanic feels pretty pointless. Why can you only build in certain locations. Why is there so little meaningful things you can build. Either this system should have been cut, or the game should have been strongly designed around it.

There's top-down sliding ice physics implemented in one of the areas, but no ice puzzles. How could you do this to me 😦

I like the healing system of this game. It's the standard flask/charges of healing, except you acquire flasks each with different properties and can fill them with healing juice that itself has different properties. It's pretty neat!

Its deeply saddening that a game with such a delightfully cozy atmosphere, tender writing and soft, delicate sountrack is also an incredibly lacking, barren experience. Gameplay feigns complexity with multiple mechanics and elements, but its lack of depth in all departments is quickly apparent: with little enemy variety, basic enemy attack patterns and sluggish animations combat is boring, puzzles are rarely complex enough to be satisfying, side-quests are too simplistic and customization elements so constrained they feel pointless.