Garden Story Review (PC)

I repair one bridge, take down a host of enemies, drop some resources into the communal box. I go to sleep, happy that the village gets some much-needed maintenance, and I can look forward to more support from the community. Three extra tasks drop for me the next day and, while I go about dealing with them, I also try to gather some more coins, push the core quest forward and find ways to improve my combat abilities.

Garden Story is created by Picogram and published by Rose City Games. You can play it on the PC using Steam or on the Nintendo Switch. The title aims to take some classic action role-playing ideas and mix them with a relaxed attitude and some engaging world-building.

The story is built around Concord, who is a grape in a world that’s threatened by Rot, a malefic power. He quickly becomes a Guardian, the one who can protect his fellow fruits and vegetables from the encroaching evil. There are four villages to move through, completing quests and engaging with other characters, to reach the root of the evil force and take it out. The game has good writing and is lighthearted even when dealing with the core quest. The cast of characters offers no big surprises, but the dialogue interactions are always fun and sometimes surprising.

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When it comes to the action part of the game Garden Story mixes combat with exploration and adds a rigid structure. Concord does have a set of main objectives and the player can choose to quickly move through them, simply moving to the next goal post as he deals with the troubles of four core villages.

But this is the wrong way to approach Garden Story. Take a tour of your house. See how it can be improved and do the same with the village you are in. See what each of the characters can offer and how to unload materials for village maintenance or extra money. See what weapons are available. Learn what areas are rich in which resources. Inhabit the world to enjoy what it has to offer.

Once Concord has his three tasks for the day he needs to move around the world (dodging and running are available) and to take out Rot enemies. Both the health and the stamina bars start off small and even fighting 3 or 4 opponents can be a problem with the low health and stamina available initially. But the main character will only become more capable as he gathers memories and equipment and soon it will be easy to kill when needed or to move away when there’s little to gain from destroying enemies. The systems are simple and efficient, and they interact well with the rest of the world and its characters.

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The biggest issue with the game is that combat is repetitive and never becomes truly engaging. And the village quests also repeat quite a lot, making it feel less like you are organically building a community and more like you are playing a less developed Ubisoft collect-a-thon. It gets annoying quickly. And the only solution I have found is to only play the game for 30 minutes at the most, going through one or two days before taking Concord’s example to get some solid eight hours of sleep.

Garden Story has a good presentation that’s perfectly in tune with the universe it builds. The characters, the locations, even the enemies are all playful, interesting, great when it comes to color use. The top-down view can be a little restrictive at times, but the world remains charming. The soundtrack provides another layer of enchantment, with tunes that make the universe feel welcoming but subtly underline loss and danger. I actually listened to the music even when I was not actively playing, which rarely happens with this type of game.

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The Good

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