Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Spry Fox

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit demo, A Quick Look (part three)

I’m back for the third and final post about the Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) demo. I want to talk about what I liked and didn’t like in the demo. I have said that the aesthetics are not my style, but they grew on me in game one. Let me rephrase that. The environments are vivid and the bears are cute; it’s mostly the player character that leaves me feeling a bit empty. I got used to it, though, anad I loved being able to dress them up as I wished. There were so many cute outfits, and I had to buy them all.

Here’s my post from yesterday about the basics of the first game and how the demo has differed so far. In this point, I’ll talk more about that and what I hope the sequel will have. And won’t have. Oh, and I’ve included the trailer from the original game below since I’ve included the trailer for this game in the last two posts.

I left off the last post by talking about how the quests seem much easier to finish in this game than the first, at least in the demo. I have mixed feelings about that because while it was frustrating in the first game to have to wait literal days to finish quests, I’m not sure I like finishing them in a matter of minutes, either. Then again, they may just be the first steps to a bigger and longer quest. I think I would be pleased if that was the case. I think that would be a good middle ground. Have some quests that can be finished in the current session and some that might have to wait until the next day.

Actually, that might have been how it was in the first game. It’s been some time since I’ve played it, so I’m not sure. It’s weird, though, because the ones you do in the moment seem to be too easy to finish. I will say I was frustrated by one thing. There’s a way to fix the bus, and you have to find several different parts. I could not find one part for the life of me, and I realized that it’s because they did not want you to find it in the demo. Or maybe not at all beacuse once the bus is fixed, presumably it can be driven. Though how it was drivin onto an island, I am unsure.

I hope that the cast of bears I have to help will be as memorable and  endearing as they were in the first game. I’m a bit wary of the content creator bear, but I mean it is part of the current social landscape. Meaning, it’s a valid job, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t be represented in the game. And yet, I’m a bit wary because they are already doing the ‘like and subscribe’ vibe that is so off-putting to me. They, themselves, though are very sweet.

I like that in the first game and in this game so far, there are a wide variety of characters. It’s one thing I appreciate in cozy games–so many of the devs are deliberate about maknig their games inclusive. Not just racially, but sexual orientation, disabilities, gender identity, neuroatypicality, etc. Even religion has been touched upon in some games, as well as spirituality. Death is definetely dealt with, too–and in a sensitive manner.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit demo, A Quick Look (part two)

I want to talk more about the Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) demo for several reasons. Here is the post I wrote yesterday about it in which I talked about the basic mechanics of the first game. I had to do it because the second game uses much of the same mechanics, has the same aesthetics, and (so far) has the same story beats.

Here’s one thing, though, that the first game had that this game so far does not. I mentioned that one of the biggest hooks of the first game was that it ran in real time (sort of). The story events often spanned several real-life days, which meant you could not do a whole event/quest in one day. Not even if you played for several hours on end. If you had to wait a day or two for something to happen, you had to wait an actual day or two.

There were seasons that lasted two months each with a transition month in between each season (I’m doing this by memory and may be off a bit). There are resources that only showed up in certain seasons, which was an interesting call. I’m talking bugs and trees, and maybe flowers? I don’t remmeber if those rotated as well.

It was an interesting decision, and the devs did it in part because they wanted players to be thoughtful about the amount of time they played the game a day. The counter to that was they had rotating side quests plus a bunch of other things you could always be doing (such as resource gathering) so you could spend more time in the game a day than they wanted. Also, with all the side quests, you could spend all your spare time in that game.

I had mixed feelings about that philosophy. In the beginning of the game, the grind was excruciating and real. There’s a fine line between asking your players to be patient and just wasting their time. In the start of this game, I feel it’s slightly on the latter side. However, there was enough that engaged me so I kept playing.  I will admit I looked a few things up to see if I could hurry things up, but the inevitable response was to just wait.

I can’t remember what the ingredient/resource it was that I couldn’t find, but I found myself getting more and more impatient. Every day, I would log on and check to see if the resource was there. Every day, it was not. I don’t remember how much time it took to get that one resource, but I did manage to get it at some point. I think it was within a week.

I was frustrated by the grind and how slow everything was going. And yet. There was something about the game that kept me coming back. It was the bears, for sure. I really liked several of them and learning their stories. Their lives were often tragic, but there was a lot of heart on display, too. I could relate to something with almost all of them, and there were none of them that I wanted to throw into the ocean.

I liked doing favors for them and making their last journey as panless and peaceful as possible. I didn’t always like them, but I was willing to be their listening ear.

In addition, there was something comforting about doing my routines every day. Check all my resources. Talk to all the bears who had open quests. Go to Mr. Kit’s store–by the way. I love Mr. Kit. He’s a big fox, and he runs the store. I really want to know his story, but he is tight-lipped in the first game. I believe I asked him a few questions about himself, but he deflected them. For someone whom I talked to every day, I knew very little about him.

He was so useful, too. He sold different hairstyles, and I loved switching them up on the regular. He also sold clothing, and I bought every single one. There were unique outfits, some of them season-themed, and I always liked switching them up on the regular.

Mr. Kit also sold storage space, and it got really pricy the more you bought. Of course it did. Once you got a taste of it, you get hooked and need more. He was the only vendor who sold storage in the game, so of course I was going to keep paying him for it.

One of my negatives of the first game–wait. I’m here to talk about the demo of the sequel, not the first game.

The quests go by so much more quickly in the sequel, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I know that it’s probably because of the criticism the devs received for the glacial (and steep) beginning part of the first game, but I also think it’s because it was initially a mobile game. There were no microtransactions in the game, and it was free to play.

I’m assuming there will be a price on it when it comes to Steam, and I am more than fine with it. The original, which came out on my birthday in 2021, was $14.99. That turned out to be a steal–I would happily have paid twice that price by the time I was done with the game. Yes, I know that is a fallacy because would I have paid $30 up front? I would have hesitated. Mightily.

Then again, I took a big chance on Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock), which was $25 and had an art style I didn’t love. Why do I always think it was thirty bucks? I don’t know. But I went back to read what I wrote about it, and I said that after playing the game, I would have payed fifty bucks for it because it was so crammed with content. Much like I felt about Cozy Grove.

I’m not sure I like how easily the tasks are accomplished in the sequel, though. Just to reiterate. Part of the charm in the first game was having to wait hours/days in real time to finish tasks/quests/story beats. I was hoping that since the game was coming back to Steam, maybe they would rejigger the tasks/quests. I realize that’s really hard to do, thouggh, so I can understand why they wouldn’t want to do that.

That’s all for today. I think I have one more post in me so I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit demo: A Quick Look

Let’s talk more about the demos I’ve played recently. Yesterday, I started talking about the Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) demo, which is the sequel to Cozy Grove. As I mentioned, it’s one of my top five non-From games of all time. I think I’d put it at three or four. (Behind Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall) and Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games) definitely. I’m not sure if I’d put it before or after Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! (Vertigo Gaming. They are essentially tied.)

The art design is not my cuppa, but it grew on me. I liked the environments for the most part and the bears–it’s just the humans that turned me off, actually. It’s a bit too cutesy for me, but I can get past that because the game is so engaging.

As I said, one of the key hooks in the first game is that it ran in real time (sort of), and you could only do a set parts of the storyline quests per day. There were always side quests you could do at any time (and they rotated, so I got pretty tired of finding six cogs buried in the leaves (made-up example, but indictative of the side quests) for one of the bears every two weeks or so).

This was one of the games that saved me after my medical crisis. I was sad that I had broken my streak of days playing the game when I had was in the hospital for two weeks, but then I picked it up again once I was able to play games again.

When I was in the hospital, one of the physical therapists told me that one way to do rehab was to play video games. My brother laughed and said that I could probably handle that. The PT said that she and her son played an hour of Breath of the Wild (Zelda) every night together.

On the fourth or fifth day I was home , I fired up Dark Souls III (FromSoft). At that time, it was my favorite game of all time. I was still wobbly, so I didn’t do any fighting. Instead, I ran around Firelike Shrine, which is the hub world in this game. It’s a reimagining of Firelinke Shrine from the OG Dark Souls, and it’s fucking gorgeous. The first time I walked into it, I had tears in my eyes. It was a sight to behold, and it warmed my heart.

The first time back after doing a respawn in real life, I had tears once again. I could not believe I was alive and running around in my favorite video game in my beloved big hat (Sage’s Big Hat). I was so overcome with emotions and grateful to be alive.


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A quick look at some indie games

I cannot believe it’s June already. How the hell did this year go by so quickly? In part it’s because it’s been mostly winterlike that it doesn’t feel as if time has advanced. or rather, we were stuck in one day for months. *Stridently ignoring world around me*

Summer Game Fest was on Friday, and there were some decent games. Nothing for me, though, as the ones I was most interested in were first-person. which I can’t play because I get nauseous. I also watched the XBox Direct yesterday. It was really good for the first half (if you care about the big games), but then it draaaaaagged in the second half. Plus, ending on COD was so ugh. Didn’t they learned from last year that the people who like that game doesn’t watch the show and vice-versa?

The big show was solid if you like Triple A games. I’m not a huge fan, but Geoff kept things moving. Hm. I’m trying to remember any game that really hit me hard. I’m looking at a list of the trailers, and there really wasn’t much for me. There was one game that intrigued me and it had the prologue on Steam. It’s called 1666 Amesterdam (Panache Digital Games), and it looked to be about witches in Amsterdam. I will admit that having black cats in it sold me on it, and I eagerly downloaded the prologue.

I will say, that the twenty minutes (slight exaggeration) of installing the sliders was not a good start. The graphics were rough, and I’m not someone who cares much about that sort of thing. When I’m looking at/playing an indie game, I’m very forgiving of flaws. I know it’s a small team of, say, under twenty people. So, yeah, it’s not going to look like a Triple A game.

The man who founded this studio was the creator of the original Assassin’s Creed. Even though I don’t vibe with those games, I have to show respect to the man who came up with the idea. Or not. But my point is that he’s a luminary in the industry. The tralier for his new game was interesting, even though the graphics were, ah, janky, at best. Plus, as I mentioned, black cats.

This game was coded for me. Witches, magic, and black cats? Hell to the fucking yes! I was interested in all those things, and once the shaders did their things, and I was finally in the game, I was eager to see what was going on. I did not love the graphics as I mentioned, but I was willing to overlook it. For now.

The controls were shonky and just did not feel good. Also, the game starts with you as the female protag walking around. Slowly. You can use your magicks to do wondrous things like light torches. I mean, really? And from what I remembered, it was very slow going. Meaning, it wasn’t just light up the torches simultaneously. You had to hold down the LT to ignite your wand or whatever and then use RT to actually light. I’m not sure those are the actual  controls, but they were something similar. And it was so awkward.


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Fourth and final post about sequels

I’m going to do one (hopefully) final post about sequels. Not because I don’t have plenty to say about it, but because I’m ready to move on. In the last post, I griped a lot about how irritating subs have become. This is not specific to video games, but just in general. Ten bucks here and ten bucks there, it’s really not worth it if you don’t watch a ton of movies and/or TV. There’s Netflix and then Amazon Prime (on which you have to sub to sub-subs to watch most anything), Hulu, and Disney Plus as the big four. But there are so many more tahn that, I’m sure. Amazon Prime is $139 a year (which is basically $11.50 a month). The cehapest Netflix membership is $7.99 a month. That’s with ads. Hulu is $9.99 a month with adds or $99.99 a year. Disney+’s cheapest plan is $9.99 a month with ads, and you can’t download the content.

Netflix was supposed to be that, but things have become so splintered in the past dacade or two. And now that they’ve made my tier ad-supported, well, it guarantees I will not watch anything on Netflix. I tried to after the change was installed, and I could not stand it. I have ad-blocker installed, and I will not watch anything with ads. And, yes, you could argue that I could upgrade for ten bucks, but it’s simply not worth it to me. $7.99 is barely worth it to me–and I’m actually thinking about giving it up.

Netflix says that I’ll be pleasantly surprised how few ads there are at this level. Um, no. I used to pay the same amount for NO ads, so any ads more than none is not pleasant. Look. I get it. They need to make money. I have no problem with that. I can even see (begrudgingly) why they added ads to their lowest tier. But do not try to make it sound like a positive when it is not. Had they said, “We need to keep up with the times and our profits are flagging. We’re keeping the $7.99 tier, but we have to add ads to that level in order to make us competitive.” I might not have believed them, but I would have at least begrudgingly accepted t hat they had to do what they had to do.

But do not try to pretend that you’re not adding a negative when that’s clearly what you’re doing. Any ads is more than no ads for the same price. That’s a negative for the consumer, no matter how you slice it.

Back to sequels. Dark Souls III is tied for my favorite FromSoft game (with Elden Ring). Here’s the thing, though. It is very much comfort food and the  ‘best of’ album that an aging rock band puts out after twenty years of playing together.


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Sequel to the third, yes one more post

I want to talk about sequels some more because I can. This is the fourth post about sequels, and I want to talk specifically about the Cozy Grove sequel. I wrote about my impressions of it (Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox)), but I got stuck on the idea of sequels.

I went deep into the rabbit hole of the different Dark Souls II launch trailers, which I have not seen before, as I was thinking about sequels. FromSoft trailers always go hard, and one reason I skip them is because they give so much away. Yes, it’s hard to tell what is what without context, but still. They show late-game bosses, which is just wild. In fact, for Dark Souls III, the final boss was the box art.

I have not played more of Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, and there are several reasons for it. But first, I’d like to reiterate that this is a mobile game. The only reason I played it at all was because I was somehow included in the Netflix beta, which I did not know until I went to Netflix for the first time in quite some time. It’s funny because I went there to cancel my membership (another post for another day), and to my surprise, I was able to play Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit on my PC. I was stoked because there was no way I was going to play the game on mobile.

By the way, in searching for the reveal trailer, I stumbled on a Reddit thread from Cozy Grove fans who were heartbroken than the game was going to be a Netflix exclusive AND a mobile game. A few people were scolding the people who said they were mad/upset/disappointed because games cost money! Yes, they do. And as I stated in my quick look at the sequel, I am not upset at Spry Fox for grabbing that Netflix money. They need to get paid and they need to eat.

However. I am also with the stalwart fans who are upset because in order to play the game, you have to keep your Netflix membership in perpetuity AND you have to play the game on your cell phone. With a teeny tiny screen. Someone pointed out that the cheapest subscription is $7.99 a month, which is $95.88 a year. It might have been a bit cheaper when the game came out because they raised their prices fairly recently, but it wouldn’t have been that much cheaper.

I wonder how many people have played the game versus the first game, but I don’t think it would be easy to find that data. I don’t think Netflix would be freely letting that out into the wild. Also, please stay in your fucking lane, Netflix. I mentioned this earlier as well, but I don’t think they are doing the right thing as they try to get into the games biz.


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Sequel to the sequel about sequels

I want to talk about sequels in video games one more time. In the last post, I pointed out some positive things about Scholar of the First Sin, the sequel to the first Dark Souls game. I ended it by talking about a popular FromSoft content creator who was pissed as hell that Elden Ring was designed around spirit summons. I’m not naming the guy, but he’s someone I watched casually in the past. A few months after Elden Ring was released, this guy put out a video that said in time, Elden Ring would be considered the worst FromSoft game. Ever.

I laughed in bemusement because one, it was only a few months after the game had come out. Two, who the hell was this guy to be the final arbiter on what was the worst FromSoft game of all time? Three. He was just wrong–and it was sour grapes. Four. It very much reminded me of fans of a hipster band who got angry when that band got big. “I was a fan before they were popular!”

Did FromSoft take a different tack with this game than with their past games? Yes. Did they balance the boss fights around spirit summons/human summons? Yes. More the former than the latter, but they made it pretty clear that the game was very summon-friendly. They also made it harder to get invaded in that you had to be using the multi-player aspect in order to be invaded. In past games, you could get invaded simply by being human–and in the case of Dark Souls II, when you weren’t human, too. I haaaaaaated that about the sequel because I suck at PvP and was mad that there was no respite from being invaded in that game. In fact, I think the more curse you had, the easier it was to get invaded. So, the opposite of the other games.

It’s funny to me how people claim they want something different, but then insist on playing the games in the exact same way. I watched a video arguing that fighting the bosses solo in Elden Ring was playing on hard mode, and it was a choice players made for themselves. Before this game, I was someone who did fight all the bosses solo (with some exceptions, but I’m not going to get into that).

It’s funny how death changes you, though. Or at least it did me. When I came back form the dead, I was grateful to have another Miyazaki world to explore; I did not care about soloing. At all. I mean, I have done all the main bosses with just the spirit summon, which is this game’s soloing the bosses.

Anyway. Here’s my point. We rail at developers for putting out the same game over and over. And then we rail at them when they change things up. This has always been my observation about Dark Souls II. If it had been called something completely different, I don’t think it would have gotten half the shit it did. But as I said in the last post, it was caught between a rock and a hard place.


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More about video game sequels (part two)

Let’s talk more about sequels in video games. I wrote a post yesterday intending to get to Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, the sequel to Cozy Grove. I took a hard detour to Dark Souls II (Scholar of the First Sin) instead, and I’m going tos stay there for the moment.

I mentioned how most hardcore From fans did NOT like Dark Souls II and/or considered it a failure. It was so intense, From actually re-released the game a year later with several fixes. The biggest one is that they changed the ending by adding one more boss after the final boss. Which, in and of itself, is…ah…how to put this diplomatically–utter horseshit. Why? Because depending on how you play it, you can face three bosses in a row without a break. Fortunately, if you kill one, they are dead for good. It’s still annoying, though, to have to babysit your souls through three boss fights back-to-back-to-back.

I have said for years that it’s not a gerat Dark Souls game, perhaps, but it’s still a great game. It’s better than 90% of the games out there. I have slightly amended that first statement. And, I’m going to say something that has caused much angst and drama. I enjoyed the second game far more than I did the first game. There is one major reason for it–it had fast travel from the start. In the first game, you had to beat Ornstein and Smough, which is roughly halfway through the game before you got the ability to fast travel. And even then, there were only specific bonfires to which you could travel. Very few and far between.

I understand the thinking behind this approach, and I can say that I know the layout of the first game so much better than I I do the second (or third). Why? Because I was forced to traverse the areas over and over again as I died so fucking much. So. Much. Dying.

However. By the time you get to the second half of the  game, any charm that plodding along the same areas again and again and again might have had has definitely worn off. Add to that the fact that the second half of the game is decidedly and markedly worse than the first half, and, well, this is my least-played of the three Souls games. And my least-favorite.

Dark Souls III is my favorite, in case you were wondering.

A friend in the RKG Discord mentioned that one thing she really liked about the second game was that there were several animal-based bosses/enemies. Which I thought was funny. Another thing I liked is that in one of the optional boss fights, there are two completely different ways to beat the boss. The conventional way to do it (by pulling a lever) and the nonconventional way–which is what I did during my first playthrough.


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What makes a good video game sequel

Let’s talk about sequels. I did A Quick Look at Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox), which was the sequel to Cozy Grove. Here’s the second part of that review. I only played a few hours because I just could not get into it. I was thinking about why that was because it’s essentially the same game as the first one, though not as good. I touched on a few of those reasons in the last post, but I wanted to flesh them out more in comparison to Dark Souls II/Scholar of the First Sin (FromSoft).

When Dark Souls II came out, it was proclaimed a disappointment and a failure by hardcore FromSoft fans. This is a gross simplification, but the essence is true. True fans would cite the million things they hated about it, and there were tons of videos on how the game was Not A Worthwhile Successor. So much (virtual) ink spilled!

There was a popular video criticizing the game, and one thing they mentioned was that when you left the swamp area and went up an elevator, you reached the lava area. The video pointed out how jarring this was because swamp to lava? Inconceivable! I read/heard this criticism over and over again, and I wanted to ask, “How many of you actually realized this as you were playing the game?” Because I sure didn’t. Oh hell. Let’s just tackle this now. The level design is not as elegant as the first game, no, but it’s not terrible the way some people like to moan. You know what? No. I don’t want to get to this now. I’ll tackle it later or in another post.

Before I get to that, though, I have to say that there were so many criticisms, FromSoft did a nemake of the game and released it over a year later–under a different name. The original was called Dark Souls II whereas the new version was Scholar of the First Sin. I played the latter first and then went back and played the beginning of the original game. I will say that SotFS is a vast improvement and that I did not finish the original. I’m saying this so it’s clear which game I’m talking about.

I will say that some of the big issues with the original game–I can see it. The hordes of enemies were off the chart and the lack of checkpoints was painful. I made it to No Man’s Wharf, and, I have to tell you, that’s brutal in the SotFS version. It’s ridiculous in the original.

I have to mention a really ridiculous bug in SotFS. Well, I’m not sure it’s a bug, but it’s ridiculous, anyway. It’s the one game that decided to get serious about durability (of weapons). Which, fine. Whatever. I’m not a fan, but eh. It wasn’t that big a deal in the first game. In this game, however, on the PC, there was a thing that made the durability degrade at an alarming rate. So in the aforementioned No Man’s Wharf, you have to carry two usable weapons (or have repair powder) beacuse one weapon will not be enough. You might be able to squeak by depending on how many enemies you kill, but if you’re me, you start worrying when the durability hits 25%.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Look, part two

Let’s talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). By the way, I don’t know when the 2 was dropped from the title and why. My hunch is that Netflix wanted it dropped because they did not want it emphasized that this was a sequel. I have no evidence to back it up, but it makes sense. Netflix is new to games and it seems to me that they want to make their mark. However, they don’t know how to do it as evidence by the fact that they opened and closed their AAA game development studio without actually producing a game.

I don’t want to tell them to stay in their lane, but I don’t NOT want to tell them that, either. I don’t know how the movie-renting business is going, but it’s gotta be going better than the games business (which is in shambles right now). Again, I don’t blame Spry Fox for taking that mad Netflix money (which I’m sure was hefty), which I wrote about in the last post.

I will be candid. I was disappointed to hear it was a mobile game because I don’t play games on my phone. I don’t do anything on my phone other than surf the web. In addition, as I mentioned in the last post, grinding for the plat in the first game and the glitches in the DLC really cooled my ardor for the game.

Is it fair to judge this game by the last one? I would usually say no, but…and again, I’m going to be very honest. While this game is a sequel, it’s more like a reboot/remake of the first game. To be fair, all the bears are different and new. New stories and new abilities. But.

I feel very churlish for waht I’m going to say because I loved the first game so much, but I have to be honest. This game–ok. I’m going to build up to it. First, I menioned yesterday that Spry Fox went too hard in the other direction when it came to the resources and how available they are. In the first game (and, yes, I will be comparing this game to the first game because they are very similar), it was very slow going to get the resources you needed because the game had a real-time 24-hour cycle. Things only showed up during certain seasons and for certain times. The first few weeks were excruciatingly slow, and I despaired that I would ever get enough resources to build up my island.

Of course, I did. And by the end of my time with the game, I was swimming in everything I could possibly need. And, weirdly, it felt a bit hollow. Like, I could do buy anything I wanted, so there was no reason to actually do anything. I’m not complaining because I wrung every drop of content out of the game. That’s the way I do when I really like something. I just keep at it until there is nothing left.

That’s not the best way to start this game, however. Because I had played the first one so thoroughly, this game fell flat for me. This is the curse of the sequels, by the way. When a game really hits you, you want the sequel to have the same things that you love about the first game, but you also want there to be enough differences to, well, make a difference. This was something that got rehashed ad nauseam when Dark Souls II came out (and I won’t get into it again here), but I maintain that there was no way the sequel was going to live up to the hardcore fans’ expectations.

I could say the same about this sequel. Not that Cozy Grove was anywhere near Dark Souls when it came to impact or reach. I’m just saying that for the fans, it was going to be hard to–well, wait. I’m not sure that’s true. I was going to say that for fans of the first game, it would be hard to top it with this one. I don’t know if that’s true, though. Cozy game lovers aren’t as brutal as hardcore fans, I feel. When I had issues with the Cozy Grove DLC, I went into the Discord and got some really good advice. And people were really nice and helpful. Unlike most FromSoft forums. Ahem.

I did not play the game today. Why? One. I felt overwhelmed. There is just too much going on. Yes, the pacing was too slow in the first game, but they over-corrected for the second game. There’s just too much. I was getting exclamation points (quests) faster than I could clear them. I don’t like that.

I also felt that I didn’t have to work for the stories the way I did in the first game. I came to truly  care for the bears in the first game because their stories unfolded across the whole game. My favorite bear in the whole game was in the DLC, but that was because I related so hard to her, not because they gave me enough of her story to flesh her out.

To be completely honest, the DLC was when I lost my enthusiasm for the game. The glitch I had really impeded my progress and made me really frustrated. If it had just been a side quest, I would be fine with it. But because it was the main quest, I felt I had to figure it out so I could finish the DLC.

My biggest issue with this game is that there are very few innovations, and the ones that exist are not interesting to me. Also, they’re frustrating to do with a mouse/keyboard. As far as I can tell, you can’t use a controller to play the game. There are a powers you use (there were some in the first game, too) that are awkward as fuck. One is a pufferfish that you squeeze in order to wash dirty areas. Cool, but it’s backwards of what I thought it would be. You have to move it away from the object you want to clean in order to use it. Also, you have to double tap or hold down the left mouse button to engage it.

These kind of objects weren’t fun to use in the first game, but they were at least manageable. Not so much in this game. Another thing is the critter net, which was in the first game. In that game, you could cast it pretty far away from you. In this game, not so much. At least I have not figured out a way to do it if you can. So you pretty much have to be standing on the critter in order to catch it.

In the end, the game has left me feeling pretty empty. If you have not played the first game, this one will be a solid entry point. Still, though, I would actually go back and play the first game over this one. I liked what I played of this one well enough, but there’s nothing there to make me want to keep going, sadly. It pains me to say that, but there you go.