I’m back to talk more about Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox). This is the second part of A Quick Review, and we’ll see how many posts I write about it. I have a lot to say, so strap in and let’s go.
In the first post, I voiced some of my frustrations at the way the game deals with inventory and resource management. It’s similar if not exactly the same as the first game, and it frustrated me then, too. I detailed how the upgrades work, and it’s tedious AF. As I said in the first post, give me a permanent upgrade to an unlimited inventory. Make it astronomical like a million coins, but just do it. I hate having to go back to the fire (Flamey) to endlessly stash things, usually after burning them. (That upgrades a lot of the items to a higher tier.)
Also, and, yes, this was also something that happened in the first game–the placement of items is so frustrating. It starts with being hard to click on the item or the NPC if the NPC is near lots of items. And, given how limited space is, most of the NPCs are near a lot of items*.
I said yesterday that the cooking machine was the same as in the first game. That is not quite true. In the first game, you had to talk to an NPC bear in order to cook things. This is much easier, and I appreciate that I can just go to the cooking machine to make what I need/want. That’s a definite upgrade from the first game.
Let’s take a minute to give praise to the changes that I appreciate. One, there are ghosts/apparyitions of your troop members (who are also lost somewhere like you) that show up to help you farm resources. They help with the same chores you have to do anyway, but if they help you, you get a ton more resources. I like that.
I also like some of the different things that you can turn your basic resources into via fire or recycling. In fact, I wished they had done more in this vein.
One thing I’m very curious about is…hm. How do I put this so that it’s not spoiler-ific? There is a mystery that started at a certain point of me doing one of the new things. Which I’m not going to say exactly what it is because it’s very different and unexpected. After doing it for several days (like weeks), I got a letter in the mailbox admiring my work. And encouraging me to do more. Which, despite my misgivings, I did. And I got another letter commending me for what I was doing. And I felt even worse about it. They said they’d send me another letter soon, but I have yet to hear from them.
I am awaiting eagerly for a few reasons. One, it’s so unexpected. When this new thing was introduced, I was taken aback. It doesn’t really fit in with a cozy game like this, but it also highlights some of the hypocrisies of said cozy games (and doing it very knowingly). I think I’ll leave the hypocrisy at that for now. But I will say another reason I am waiting with bated breath is because I can’t imagine how it’s going to be resolved, and that excites me.
This game is comfort food. I wasn’t expecting it to be much more than that, but I had hopes that it wouldn’t be a carbon copy of the first game. Which, honestly, it mostly is. It keeps both the good and bad from the first game, for good and bad.
This mystery is intriguing and diametrically different than anything else in the game. The whole set-up is scratching at my brain, and I hope it gets resolved soon.
Another thing that I appreciate is that while they kept the every day is in real time conceit of the first game (which is what made that game so unique), they squished the time it took to move a bear’s story forward. I do think they went a tad too far in the other direction, but I prefer this pace to how agonizing slow the pacing was in the first game.
I try to be forgiving of things that will eventually be fixed especially if they don’t actually break the game. However, some of it is really furstrating. Like placing a tree and not being able to move it again. There seems to be more of a problem with that in this game than in the last–picking up items and placing them, I mean. Besides the above problem I mentioned about not being able to pick up the item I want, sometimes an item phases out of existence and simply cannot be picked up.
Also, let’s talk about the cats. You can have cats as pets (this was possible in the first game, too). You have to inside your tent, and there is a cat attractor in there. You have to place three foods inside and then you’ll get a cat the next time you return (maybe the next day?). The problem is that the system is broken in this game so that they are constantly draining hearts no matter the decor. Which means they can’t level up. Every time I think the devs have fixed it, it goes bad again. It’s to the point where I don’t know if I should even bother feeding the cats. Oh, and I looked up how to get the cat I wanted because there are too many ways to mess it up and get the default cat.
None of thet flaws are dealbreakers in and of themselves, but they add up. It’s frustrating to not be able to place things correctly–and I fully admit it might be at least partly my fault because of my terrible dexterity.
I really like the bears. They are the best part of the game, as they were in the first game, too. I think if someone hasn’t played the first game, this game is a great palce to start. It’s not a sequel for the first game, and it does have some of the rough edges sanded off. I would recommend it to people who like chill and relaxed games with a lot of resource management. A LOT.
*Animals, trees, and flowers gain hearts and give more resources when they are placed near decorations that suit their likes. And, conversely, they lose hearts and give less resources if they are placed near decorations/animals they don’t like.