Oh boy, here I go again repeating myself about these kinds of life sim farming games. Or am I? Cozy Grove is a lot like one of the many life sim farming games that I love playing so much but with a whole lot of extra stuff going on, both good and bad.

The game just recently came out near the start of April, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it at first, mostly because it looked too different from what I was used to, but also because of the price, which was a bit high for me.

But a little while ago the game went on sale. It was only 10% off but I was able to get my hands on a copy for only around $6 and that was too good of a deal to pass up, so I grabbed it and played for a couple hours during that very first day of owning it and I was pretty surprised by it.

Obviously I had no idea what I was doing, mostly because the game came out recently so there weren’t that many tips out there, but also because I kind of went into the game blindly, only having read the games description on the eshop page before making my decision to buy it.

But I’m definitely glad that I did buy the game in the end, especially at the price that I did because the game is super charming and wholesome, and it’s such a treat to play. To me, it makes me think of a cross between Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Don’t Starve, which is something that I’m all for.

The game makes me think of Animal Crossing: New Horizons because of its day night cycle. In Animal Crossing, there’s only so much that you can do in a given day that directly has to do with the story.

Since most of the stuff is time sensitive and based on real world time, you either have to wait until the next day to continue doing the big stuff, or mess with your Switches clock to set it forward a day, and there’s nothing wrong with doing either since the purpose of the game is to have fun.

Cozy Grove is a very similar game because you can only do a handful of story missions each day. You can keep exploring the island and collecting items as long as you want, but interacting with characters and advancing the story is limited to one or two 30 minute bursts each day.

So obviously unless you mess with time, this isn’t the kind of game that you can sit down with for hours at a time. It’s the kind of game where you play a little bit here and there and makes you spread out your experience over the course of weeks or months.

The game makes me think of Don’t Starve because of it’s art style. While the tone isn’t as dark as Don’t Starve and there’s a lot more color, life, detail, and cuteness, the style and overall design is very close and makes me feel like it’s straight out of a Tim Burton project visual wise.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

There isn’t really much to say about the graphics since I already compared it to Don’t Starve but it also kind of reminds me of Cat Quest because of the structure of the overworld and that’s a style that I like a lot.

The style features lots of color and detail, which makes Cozy Grove look beautiful at times. One of the main focuses of the game is to bring color and life back to the island and when you fill the area with color or bring it to life for the first time, so much detail gets added with a ton of trees, structures, and other objects.

The only downside to this is the fact that it can get very cluttered at times and can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming or make it feel a bit difficult to move around. But other than that, Cozy Grove is simply a beautiful game in the graphics department.

SOUND: 8/10

There are two major aspects of sound in Cozy Grove, which are the music and the general sounds of the game. For sound, you have a couple notes that represent talking but there isn’t really any voice acting and other than those, there’s a bunch of different sounds for different actions but every now and then I have to mess with the volume because they’d be a bit quiet.

Then you have the music side of sound, which I like a lot more than the other sounds. A large chunk of the music is very nice, calm, and relaxing, which is something that I like, but it doesn’t really stand out.

ADDICTIVENESS: 8/10

Because of the game’s nature of only giving you a certain amount of story stuff each day, the game can get really boring if you try to overdo it in one day. If you play for 30 minutes and you do all the story stuff but then you try to spend an hour or two only fishing or digging, it’s going to get very repetitive quickly.

In order to avoid this, you should only play for 30 to 60 minutes a day or once you do all the stuff for that day, set your switch forward a day so that you can keep playing. If you mess with the clock, it will become easy to put 6 to 8 hours of gameplay in during a single day.

Other than that, the game is pretty fun. Most of the enjoyment comes from the humor and story though as the gameplay stuff can get a little repetitive or difficult, even if you still have stuff to do that day. Other than the story stuff, one of my favorite things to do is collecting all sorts of stuff so that I can sell them and make as many coins as I can get my hands on.

There’s lots of stuff to buy and a large assortment of cabin furniture and clothing for you to work with. So, even if you are done with the story stuff, you can still spend a lot of time with the décor aspect of the game.

Other than that, this probably isn’t the kind of game that you would want to start over with, especially with all the time sensitive stuff, unless you really liked the story. Once you’re done with everything that there is to do, that will be about it, but there’s nothing wrong with that because the experience of getting to that moment will have definitely been worth it in the end.

STORY: 9/10

The story of Cozy Grove is very simple but it also packs a punch and can be very sweet and charming while also sad and dramatic at times. In the game, you’re a camper on a haunted island and not only do you get to explore the island, but you get to interact with and help out the locals, who also happen to be ghost bears.

The residents will ask you to help them out with a variety of tasks that will mostly involve finding lost objects that were left in weird places but there’s plenty of emotion there too. But for me, the best part of the game when it comes to the story is the humor.

There are lots of moments where the developers put in silly or sarcastic dialogue to give interactions with other characters a breath of life, and it really shows in how funny the game can be at times.

For instance, there’s a bear named Francesca who thinks they’re a tree. There’s even a moment where one of the spirits asks why you’re helping them and one of your choices is “You give a quest, I do it, you reward me. That’s the way this works.” I didn’t choose that choice, but the fact that this was an option really made me wonder what was going to be in store humor wise.

There’s even a mailman bear near the start of the game that tells you to bring him any “packages” that are screaming or spewing fire. Not to take care of them or anything, but because they’re probably addressed to him.

There aren’t that many games that work this well in the humor department. Cozy Grove isn’t just cute and charming, but very clever, sarcastic, and satirical at times, and that’s something that I love about it.

DEPTH: 9/10

For me, the biggest aspect of depth is the fact that you can only plan a certain amount of time towards the story each day. If you actually go along with this route and play the story stuff one day and then you keep playing but wait until the next day for story, then you’ll get more out of the game.

Let’s say this game is 40 hours and another game is 40 hours and you play the other game for 5 hours a day. Then it would be done after like 8 days. But with this game, if you do an hour of story stuff every day and then do your own stuff for the remaining 4 hours it would take you much longer to beat the game.

There’s also a huge cast of characters to interact with, around 20 in total. Nearly all of them will set you up with crazy quests or tell you about either their past or the island’s history. Each character can easily give you an hour of content or plot info. Other than that, there isn’t much going on other than things like the amount of fishing, digging, crafting, and selling, there’s a lot of those too though so don’t worry, there’s lots to do.

If you don’t time travel and you take your time with all of the story stuff, this game could easily set you back 100 hours or more.

DIFFICULTY: 3

There isn’t anything about Cozy Gove that’s inherently hard, and anything that is hard can really be resolved by either being patient and waiting, spending extra time looking around for stuff, or spending your coins. For example, maybe you need to find a very specific item but you looked everywhere and can’t seem to find it on the island.

Trust me, you will find it eventually if you keep looking but if that’s not what you’re about, you can always spend coins on a hint, which will point you to exactly where the item you’re looking for is hiding.

So basically you just have to pay and all of the puzzles will be solved for you. But I wouldn’t really recommend doing that unless you’re really stumped. Other than that, Cozy Grove is mostly a waiting game since you need to wait for the next day to get new quests or you have to wait for different things to happen. But of course if you’re impatient you can always change the time on your switch so there isn’t really much to worry about in the difficulty department.

OVERALL: 8.7

Cozy Grove is full of charm and beauty that surrounds a lively and entertaining cast of characters. The game is lots of fun and even though I was able to get it at a steep discount, I would definitely recommend the game at full price, which is $15. For that price, you’re getting a great game that’s full of lots of content that can set you back dozens of hours.

The content itself is also really good as well. Like I said before, the game is very reminiscent of a crossover between Animal Crossing and Don’t Starve, which is a very unique and promising combo. Overall, Cozy Grove is a game that works for the Switch and gets an 8.7 out of 10 from me. It’s definitely a game that’s well worth both your time and money, especially if you can get it on sale like I did.