A little bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a dash of Minecraft, a dollop of city-building games, a dash of RPG, and a healthy dose of adventure – that’s how complex it is to define Grow: Song of the Evertree. We have already been able to play the new video game from Prideful Sloth and 505 Games, a title that starts out terribly slow, but has potential.
Construction, life simulation and management games have a very enthusiastic audience. These types of titles have different variants in the industry, but when one does well, success is almost guaranteed. Grow: Song of the Evertree wants to bring together the best of each house and bring the odd novelty in a creative, relaxed game perfect for nature lovers.
It is difficult to explain what Grow is, but the truth is that the best way to do it is by comparison: it is a game that takes from Animal Crossing and Minecraft, and gives it the touch of a management game, although it seems that without a very great depth . After a few hours with the title, I have liked it more and more and I have seen that it can be a little surprise for lovers of life simulation games.
Rebuild the world
Grow: Song of the Evertree is a story by reconstruction and of Love for nature. Alaria is plunged into despair, after a series of events that filled her lands with “withering”, a phenomenon that took life from almost every corner. Our protagonist, who we can customize to our liking, is a alchemist, legendary beings capable of saving the world.
For this, our goal is give strength yet big tree that he is capable of giving life and caring for all those who live under his protection. With this premise, the development of the game is somewhat confusing at first, and it is not precisely due to a lack of text. The start of the video game is terribly slow and you can’t quite understand why you are doing certain things that are not very fun.
The Tree can harbor in its branches different worlds. We have the ability to find “Seeds of the world” so that a new earth may be born. When this happens, our objective is to prepare that world so that the life begins to emerge there. With a touch reminiscent of Minecraft, we have to get resources and improve that place. This is difficult to understand at first, but these worlds serve us, above all, to obtain resources.
I have to say that, although it is not very entertaining to do the tasks every day (the game has its own time, and a day and night cycle) to take care of the world, there is a certain satisfaction to see how it grows when a few days go by. At first, this space of land is a brown wasteland with nothing, but as the days go by and our work becomes noticeable, everything fills with green, the trees grow, the bugs and creatures begin to appear, and everything takes on another dimension. And that’s what the game is about: get back life.
The mission system The game is literally taken from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Nintendo Switch game. There are some objectives that, by doing them, will reward us with rewards. Some of them are recurring and they will give us prizes the more times we fulfill them. The problem with the game, at least in the hours that I have played, is that it does not give all the freedom that one would like. There are certain missions that we have to fulfill yes or yes in a compulsory way so that everything runs its course and progresses: there is a kind of mixture Come in linearity and freedom.
The Difficulty of Running a Village
The resources that we have obtained in that world that we are creating (it expands with the passage of time, and even more can be created) help us to obtain essences for alchemy, where we can do certain magical experiments. Besides that, it is also worth to be able to improve our village, a space that we managed to build at the foot of the great Tree.
When I first saw this village and its management I thought hopelessly of Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom. In the JRPG we also control our kingdom, we build new buildings and we are getting improvements thanks to them. Although it reminds me of him and has certain similarities, in Grow it is something different and it is perhaps here where more fun we can find.
Little by little humans are beginning to arrive in this village looking for a new home and work. We have to build houses for them and services so that they are taken care of. As managers, we assign the characters to each of the available jobs. Each of the villagers has statistics that tell us what they are good at, so if we want the bakery to function at full capacity and satisfy the rest of the people, we have to assign a human with a good figure in the section of “Feeding”.
On the subject of construction, there are total freedom. The buildings are predetermined, but we can choose their location, how we connect them with the rest of the village, the amount we put … I really think that, if you like city-building video games, there is also a hole here for you . In addition, the useful space of the village will grow with the passing of the hours, so it can be really large.
With the time that I have played, I have not finished seeing, yes, if improving our village provides us with interesting benefits for our development, although I understand that it will. As I told you, the game is slow at the beginning and what worries me is that that slowness is not justified in the overall assessment.
I mean, will it be a worthwhile game when we take 30 hours? Are you lengthening the experience artificially? We can only get out of doubt when the Nov. 16But if you stay interested it can be a pleasant surprise for those looking for a quiet experience.
Because beyond all this, the game has other mechanics like hunt bugs or fish that can extend their useful life even more. Something positive that I have felt playing is that, once the initial tedium is over, I have catching more and more, something that is not simple. I am concerned that such a poorly calculated principle could cause many players to reject it first, but I would recommend that you give it a few hours if you are interested.
The power of life
Grow: Song of the Evertree deserves that gamers who love video games like Animal Crossing, Hokko Life or even The Sims have an eye on it. There are certain potential so that it is a relaxed experience, but complete and with many hours of fun. If you like building cities and you have a certain love for nature, don’t take your eyes off it.