I have more to say about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). In the last post, I mentioned my issues and frustrations with the resource gathering/management as well as my excitement for a mystery thhat is happening.
I do think if someone has not played the first game, this is a fine place to start. But, I also think overall the first game is better.
Here’s the thing with sequels. They are in a Catch-22 because they need to have the same charm as the original to appease the fans, but they also need enough new and fresh ideas in order to expand that appeal. I saw it happen with Dark Souls II (FromSoft) (which was a good game, even if ti wasn’t a good Souls game, per se), and I have seen it with other games, too. I liked Torchlight (Runic Games) better than Torchlight II, and I liked Hades (Supregiant Games) better than Hades II. Dark Souls is a more original game than the successor, obviously, but is it better? I would say the first half is, but not the second half.
All of that is to say that so far, I would say that I prefer OG Cozy Grove to the sequel. It was so fresh with its real-time gameplay, and I really gelled with the format. I couldn’t wait to play every day and to learn more about the bears. Even the excessive resource gathering (and the tiny inventory space). I only started getting frustrated when I went for the plat, which had some truly egregious achievements. So far, this game has tedious ones, but not any that are terrible. There are four locked achievements, though, which means that I’ll hold out as long as I can before giving in and looking them up.
Side note: I don’t really like hidden/locked achievements, though I understand why it evolved for them to be a thing. It’s because they are related to the story, and the devs want the players to be able to have those moments organically. At some point, though, I start worrying that I’ve missed an achievement–which means I will usually look up the full list before I get too far in a game.
FromSoft games have scarred me in this respect. I like to experience them unspoiled as much as possible, but I also don’t want to miss out on NPC questlines. Which are byzantine, obtuse, and really difficult to figure out without a guide–at least fgor me. But if I look up an NPC questline, I will get spoiled on other questlines. That’s just how it works.
It’s the same for locked achievements. I will hold out as long as possible, but at a certain point, I will give in. Otherwise, I’ll hit the achievements and get mad at how I wasted time by not looking them up earlier. That happened in Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) with a very specific achievement that meant I had to play the whole game again just to get it. Well, not all of it, but a good chunk of it. Which infuriated me and left a sourr taste in my mouth. I still loved the game, but my enthusiasm for it was very subduued by the end of the plat run.
Now, clearly, this is partly my fault because I don’t have to go for the plat. I never have to go for the plat. No one is making me do it–except my brain. At some point, a lever in my brain flips and tells me I MUST get the plat. It’s roughly around 60% of achievements acquired–if there’s roughly forty to fifty achievements or less. Which is how many there are in most cozy games. In fact, in some of them there are a dozen or so.
I have said several times that my favorite plat ewas for Hades (Supergiant). There are 49 achievements, and I got all but six of them through playing the game. Granted, that took roughly a hundred hours, but it didn’t feel like a struggle. I was afraid that the last six were going to be a pain in the ass, but for the most part, they went surprisingly well.
FromSoft is the absolute worst with plats, and my theory is that they hated having to do plats (were basically forced to do so by Sony and other publishers). Therefore, they made them as unpleasant as possible as a way of showing their displeasure. They were really unpleasant to get, especially the third game. That’s my favorite From game (at least until Elden Ring came out) and I used to play it every day for several years. The plat made me hate it and put it down for several months. Fortunately, I got ever my hate at some point, but, ugh. That was the worst.
Back to this game. I’m already peeking at the achievements, and I’ve actually done a few that I could do. There are others that will just take time (like, several months) to get because it’s based on in-game playtime. Which is still real time. So, like you have to play for four seasons, which, if it’s like the last game, it’s two months each plus one in-between month. If my math is correct, you have to play for ten months (at least one day in four different months. Plus, you have to play for ninety days. At least it’s not consecutive this time (as I think it was in the first game).
When I get to the point where I am paying more attention to the achievements than I am to the game (while mid-story), that’s not a good sign.
There is something that is just missing by a whisker with this game. I still enjoy playing it, but there’s something in the back of my mind that heaves a small sigh whenever I run into one of the several small issues I have with the game. None of them on their own is enough to deter me from playing the game, but when you add them up, it’s a constant ball of frustration. Again, it’s not enough ot make me stop playing, but I’m painfully aware of each little frustration as it happens.
I just leveled up my fire/tent to 8. I need to reach 10 to get the achievo. This one took 350,000 coins, and the next is…at least a hundo more? That’s another issue I have with the game, but I’m not going to get into it now. It’s getting late, and it’s time for me to sleep. I will write more tomorrow. I’ll try to stick to the actual subject–but I can’t make any promises.