Underneath my yellow skin

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Wanderstop (Ivy Road): my offical review

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I finished Wanderstop (Ivy Road) at roughly 16 hours, and I want to do my official review of it while it’s still fresh in my mind. In the past post, I was talking at length about my frustrations with the game, and I know it sounds like I hated it. I did not hate it. In fact, there were aspects of it I really liked. It’s just frustrating because the gameplay itself lets it down (in my opinion, of course), and I felt it could have been streamlined. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that there was a whole chapter (as I defined it, the time between each clearing) that just was not necessary. And coming on the heels of the big reveal, it felt as if it were added to deliberately make the game longer.

In playing Love, Ghostie (Jambeh Games), I really appreciated that one playthrough was three hours. It didn’t overstay its welcome, and if I hadn’t felt compelled to get the plat, I would have been completely satisfied with one playthrough. If this game had been a tight eight-hour experience, it would have sat so much better with me. I know the theme is burnout and learning how to lean into chilling the fuck out, but I don’t think the devs deliberately included a wasted chapter specifically to enhance the theme. I mean, I think it’s there to underscore that not everything has a reason, but I still think it’s poorly implemented.

We need to talk about the the hype surrounding the themes/story/plot. Look. I’m not going to hate on a game that tackles big issues. I would rather a game try to say something meaningful and fail than to not try at all. And I’m pretty sure that at least half the issue is that I think about things in a much different way than most people. This game, which people found so deep, was very much Pysch 101 for me. Which is fine! If I had known that going in, I would have lowered my expectations accordingly.

Side note: I think this is one of the problems for me in general. The more something is hyped, the better the chance is that it’s going to fall flat for me. It’s the same with movies like Brokeback Mountain. I went into it with my hype sky-high because of how everyone was raving about it.  I walked out of it thinking it was pretty good (the acting was solid), but it was so basic and riddled with issues. Including the fact that there was way more straight sex than gay sex, which was indicative of one of the biggest issues with the movie. (Which I’m not going to get into because it’s not the point of this post.)


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Wanderstop (Ivy Road)–A Quick Look, part two

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I think I’m close to finishing Wanderstop (Ivy Road), but I’m not sure. I am determined to finish it, but I–well, I’ll get to that later. Yesterday’s post was about the struggles I had with the game, and I’m going to continue in that vein today. Also, the video I’ll include below is the review I was talking about in yesterday’s post. Miss Bubbles touched upon many of the things that frustrates me about the game.

The controls remain fiddly. Boro gives me tasks from time to time, and the most recent one was filling the empty pots in the shop with flowers. That meant putting a flower from the outside into a pot, carrying it into the shop, and transferring the flower into the pot inside. For the most part, it was easy-peasy. However, there were two pots on a higher level. That meant I had to get on the ladder, spin the ladder to the right place, and then transfer the flower from the carryable pot to the pot on the shelf. Except I could not center myself properly and kept missing the prompt. Which flashed for half-a-second. I literally had to inch the ladder pixel by pixel, stopping after each movement. Then when the prompt flashed, I had to quickly mash A and hope that I actually got it.

That’s compelling gameplay, I’ll tell you what. (Spoiler, it’s fucking not.) The camera angles are still shonky, and I still clip through the environment. I have just acecpted that I will feel slightly queasy as I play the game.

I have not grown any fonder of the gameplay mechanics in the game. I will say that I do appreciate that there’s no time limit for the tasks and that I can fuck up repeatedly without making anyone angry. I don’t have to worry about anyone storming off in a huff or losing money (or making it for that matter).

I must say that I like the farming/selling part being so chill. I don’t mind a hardcore farming/restaurant sim, but ti’s a nice change of pace for that to be in the background.

That makes sense with the theme of burnout. Alta is in the clearing (that’s what it’s called) because she has lost her fighting mojo. Anyi time she tries to pick up her sword or go into the forest, she passes out. This is the big mystery, and the game makes a really big deal out of it. I had read/heard there was a big dark twist, and I was curious to see what it was. Almost every review talked about the deep feels they had about the game as well.


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Wanderstop (Ivy Road): A Quick Look

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about my backlog and indie games in general. I mentioned one that I was instantly drawn to when I saw the trailer, and now I want to talk about it. It’s called Wanderstop (Ivy Road), and it’s by the developer of The Stanley Parable. Everyone raved about the latter, but I could not stand it. I found the narrator insufferable, and if I remember correctly, the game made me mildly nauseous (first-person). When I realized that the former was made by the latter’s dev, well, my interest dampened considerably. But I wanted to give it a fair shot, especially because I loved the premise of it.

You play as Alta, someone who’s only purpose in life is to fight with her sword in hand. No wonder I was drawn to the story! She’s won every fight for several years in a row, then loses one. Then another. And another. A series of events make it so she ends up at a wery charming and odd tea shop run by a man named Boro. By the way, I instantly felt a kinship with Boro and will protect him to the death. He is the best.

He rescues Alta and suggests that she saty at his tea shop (Wanderstop) while she rests up. It’s clear to him that  Alta can’t keep doing what she’s doing, but she’s stubborn (I also relate to her as well). This is what she’s meant to do. She can’t fathom having a different life, and she is angry that he would even dare suggest it.

But. She can’t live her old life any longer. At least not right now. And there’s nothing else for her to do, so….I have to say that I like the tone of the game. I like Boro, and I can empathize with Alta. The environments are colorful and charming. The music is whimsical and matches the vibes.

You can sense a but, can’t you? Well, I’m not there yet.

The game has some accessibility options, such as a dot to mitigate motion-sickness. It’s a third-person perspective, but it does invoke nausea in me. I fiddled with the camera controls, and I have made the nausea minimal. But I can’t make it disappear completely.

I feel like a broken record, but my limitations make the gameplay unpleasant and unnecessarily laborious. The gameplay is not hard in general, but the grid-like hexagons are hard for me to stay on. What I mean is that you have to plant seeds in specific patterns. My dexterity makes it difficult for me to land on the precise hexagon I need. Plus, I think the controls are just way too fiddly and overcomplicated.

After an hour-and-a-half of play, I found that while I was mildly positive as to the characters and the story, the gameplay was really dragging it down. This is not a farming sim, but it’s not a story-driven game, either. It’s somewhere in between, and I’m not sure they managhed to bridge the gap successfully.


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