Oh my god this game is insufferable. Lemme break it down.

The characters are obnoxious and pompous. I've never told a game to shut up more in my life. The characters are all piss stains who come off as incredibly stupid people who believe that they're smart, most of the time. The writing is incredibly up its own ass with waxing psuedo-philosophy it becomes quite grating. Also, did the team not have enough male voice actors? Because there's a lot of demons with female voices that have male bodies. Like, linebacker demons that sound like princesses.

The mechanics are annoying. You walk right. That's about it. I'd like to say this has a good moral choice system, but it's a fucking straight line. No matter what you pick you keep moving forward. None of your decisions even come close to mattering. If you whiff outdrinking Satan he will give you infinite tries, so even the point of the game doesn't matter or pose any kind of challenge to it. It's ultimately quite a waste of time.

This game is glitchy as all hell, too. Plenty of times the models will vanish, the camera will go off somewhere during a cutscene, the dialogue will keep going when the game is paused, or my personal favorite, the map menu will be visible for a few frames and then vanish. Fun fun fun!

The worst sin this game commits is that it's not funny at all. Awkward fumbling into a mic does not make good improv. It's billed as a comedy but I couldn't bring myself to crack a smile for a second. Game stinks

If you like anything that's good, avoid this game, 100%. Maybe Night School Games doesn't make anything to my specific personal taste, but I honestly feel like I played a game where I ultimately gained nothing and completely wasted my time. I give it 1 and a half stars just because I like the premise. Drinking your way out of hell would have easily made for a good game done by literally anyone else.

Slightly better version of Risen 2 due to just including more narrative elements from the first game. I still like the Pyranha Bytes formula and you can have a lot of fun questing, but these last two games have just lost a bit of that charm. I feel like the two biggest contributors here are the visual design and the combat. I dislike the cartoony look the series decided to pivot to and I absolutely hate the combat. PB combat up to R1 was nothing to really praise but I didn't active hate it. It was nice and something I was used to. This new style is just awful.

I really like this game in concept. Loved the act of deducing plants from vague descriptions and slowly discovering the world through maps and trinkets. The music fit the whole ambience quite nicely. The charming and tactile UI is reminiscent of Papers Please.

Some of it did get quite tedious with the sheer number of plants to manage with little more than a couple shelves to attempt some form of organization. Some of the riddles and puzzles could be awkward, but I really didn't like the inclusion of the map cooldown meter that really stopped any momentum you had to figure out clues. It felt like unnecessary friction.

Overall Strange Horticulture is a mostly delightful way to explore botany and cult/folklore world building, while shifting the events of your country with your curated selection of herbal wonders.