Weedcraft Inc. Review (PS5)

Tycoon games hold a special place in my heart since I first encountered Transport Tycoon designed and developed by the legendary Chris Sawyer. Since the early days of running games in MS-DOS, I tried most tycoon-like games no matter if they involved managing golf courses, theme parks filled to the brim with roller coasters or prehistoric creatures, zoos, hospitals, universities and even prisons. So it was natural to be curious about growing a small pot business into a medically licensed facility.

Devolver Digital seems to have a proclivity for titles that attract the limelight, with any price, no matter the controversy. The game developed by Vile Monarch, presenting a fictionalized version of the weed trade fits like a glove this formula, and has attracted a lot of attention, especially from the media. After a five-year slumber, the game is rereleased on consoles, after receiving mixed reviews on PC.

The basics, just as the visual style, did not change. You have to build a lucrative empire from growing pot. A major change compared to the PC release is the presence of another scenario, thus the game reaching a total of three plus a sandbox mode with a lot of rules and conditions to be freely personalized.   

The first scenario presents a family tragedy, with a too soon departed father leaving behind a more than fragile financial situation, forcing his favorite son to quit his MBA and move back to Michigan. The second scenario focuses on a reformed inmate who tries to turn his life around, but somehow ends up on the wrong side of the law once again. The newly added content features a second-generation pot farming family in California trying to conquer the distribution network of Los Angeles.

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The three different settings present different stages of the business with an increased level of difficulty. While in the first you have to start from the ground up familiarizing yourself with the basics, the other two offer much large playgrounds challenging the advanced players. But each time the basic recipe is the same: grow the product, adapt it to the needs of your customers and reinvest the profit so you can expand the business.

With enough business savvy and perseverance, you will move up from growing illegally cheap weed in your decrepit building and selling it to hobos and jocks, to catering to a select clientele in elegant locations filling out legal prescriptions. There are several aspects you have to juggle along the way from raising the quality of your product, to buying or creating new varieties, while also keeping an eye on the police.

Breaking the law is not the issue – having the right friends in your pocket is though. And not just among the uniformed upholders of the law, but also by employing the best workforce you can buy or find. When this avenue opens, you will move up from being hands on in the cultivation and sales, into managing your human resources and marketing efforts in order to increase your market share.

All this is packed in a satirical approach with a story that tries to balance out being funny and entertaining with a layer of raising awareness about the issues of the marijuana industry. The result is neither inspired, nor successful. Most of the dialogue feels flat, the story itself is quite predictable and the personalities of the characters are not very inviting to create emotional attachment. No matter the scenario, the writing is just not good enough to keep you engaged.

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And while the gameplay can evolve into being pretty complex, it is also very repetitive. Often you will feel like you are grinding, going through the same gameplay mechanics to achieve the mission goals you were presented with. On the other hand, by activating Chill Mode, making money by ignoring the goals and focusing on quickly growing and selling the same product, can make you Op from a financial point of view, but also does nothing else than underline the repetitiveness of the game structure.  

The worst parts of the game by far are the interface and the control scheme. The former have not been changed in order to take advantage of controllers, while the latter seems to have been designed by someone who hasn’t even used a controller. As a result, Weedcraft Inc.’s menu system and navigation or not just counterintuitive or clumsy, but rather annoying. The developers tried to mimic the input scheme of a mouse and keyboard rather than embrace a scheme adapted to the buttons and sticks of a controller.

At first glance, the visual style is colorful and good looking, while reminding somewhat of the GTA 3 ads and promo materials. At a closer look though things change, the individual personality of the games comes through, at the same time the graphics do not hold up so well under scrutiny. The blending of the 2D and 3D elements feel weird, mainly due to contrast between the blurriness and the sharpness of various elements. There is no voice acting, and the soundtrack seems to be plagues with tunes made by up endlessly repeating beats. The loading times are fairly short.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion