I’m back to talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit–A Quick Review (Spry Fox). I am aware of the irony of me calling it a quick review when I’m on the fourth part, but it’s funny (at least to me). Plus, the new season started today so let’s goooooo with new items! The game was released on July 15th, and the new season (fall) started on September 1. That makes me wonder if they shortened the seasons in this game (again, in the first game, a season was two months with a month between two seasons) or if it’s just because of when the game was released. My hunch is that it was the latter, but we’ll see when the next season starts.
I really like the start of a new season because it means a ton of new resources. New critters (bugs, insects, and butterflies), new trees and flowers, new seashells, and new fish. I had not gotten anything new in a while. The thrill of seeing that ‘new’ in the deescription in bold black ink really perked me up just when I’ve been dragging my ass in the game.
It’s the same as it was in the last game, yes (new resources at the change of seasons) except they cut out the in-between month this time. Again, we’ll see if that’s just because of the release date or if they choose to cut the seasons short. I think it’s the former because they like to have things link up with the real world. Which, again, I appreciate for the most part.
I talked in the last post, well, mostly about plats and why I hate them so much. It was related to this game, yes, but it was more me just needing to go off. I hate plats, and yet, I feel compelled to get them after I obtain a certain percentage of the achievements. Usually it’s around the 65% that I start noticing what I need to get the plat.*
Back to all the delicous new resources in a new season. If this game holds true to the first game, this means I’ll get new bears and new recipes, too. I’m not sure about the latter because the specificity of an ingredient doesn’t matter. What I mean by that is you don’t make anything with, say a blueberry. It’ll use fruit jam, wnhich you make by burning the fruits. Same with nuts. No recipe will ever ask for a pecan, for example. It’ll just need nut flour, which you get from burning the nuts.
I actually like this because it makes the cooking fairly simple. I just have to gather all the resources and burn the ones that can be born. Easy-peasy. I don’t like how intensive some of the master recipes are (highest tier), but that’s not unexpected.
I get that there has to be a tension (as a dev) between making something too easy and making it too hard, but I think you should always err on the side of less tedious than more tedious. I once heard a content creator say that many cozy games were not cozy at all. He was half-joking, but he was not wrong. It can be overwhelming the sheer amount of things that you can/need to do. One saving grace is that in many of the games, there isn’t a time limit in which you have to do things, but it’s still too much at times.
Concerning the mystery I mentioned yesterday, I still haven’t gotten another letter about it. A few more days of this, and I will probably look it up. I do not want to do that, but I know I’ll be frustrated at some point with not knowing how to move the mysteray along.
This is my personal tension. I try not to use a guide the first time I play a game because I want to discover things organically, but there reaches a tipping point. I’m close to being there. There is another mystery that is slightly less compelling, but still intriguing. Again, I have no idea how to make the next step happen, though I have several wild theories.
I will say that reaching a new season has made me more invested in the game again. Oh, and it was revealed to me that two of the bears have a connection that I should have guessed earlier. I mean, there were no clues, really, until the actual connection was revealed. But still. This connection is another mystery that draws me in–and it’s really the strength of the game for me. All the mysteries that hopefully will be revealed over time.
The new season is enough to keep me ingaged for now. I don’t know how I’ll feel by the next season, but I’m content with this being low pressure comfort food.
I will say that the economy is still very lopsided, but they made the difficulty less painful than in the first game. What I mean is that in the first game, it was such a struggle in the beginning. Having to wait actual in-real-life days for certain resources to grow/spawn was not fun at all. In this one, it’s fairly painless to get the resources you need. The only exception is a legendary seashell. Seashells seem sparser in this game in general, and getting a legendary one also sometimes takes in-the-real-world days.
I remember I needed one ofr a mission, and I did not get it two days in a row. I don’t know if that’s bad luck or it’s meant to be that hard, but it was anonnoying. I think the fact that resources are so plentiful in general in this game make the stinginess of the seashells even worse.
I know how that sounds. Whiny as fuck. But here’s the thing. I don’t like it when things are tough or tedious just to be tough or tedious. Like, I don’t play FromSoft games for the difficulty. I accept that I have to deal with the difficulty in order to get the parts I do enjoy–which is the exploration. This is one reason I don’t like most soulslikes. So many of them focus on the hard part without paying a whiff of attention to all the other stuff that makes From games so compelling. Especially level design. So many companies either skimp on it, skip it altogether, or simply can’t do it.
That’s all for tonight. Maybe more tomorrow. Or not.
*Yes, I call in a plat even though I play on PC. Sometimes, I’ll call it a hundo chievo if someone is being a dick enough about the plat thing (though sometimes I’ll double down on plat in that situation. You can never tell with me.