Garden Story (2021)

Playtime: 13,5 hours (completed main quest + most side quests)

Played: 2026

Context: A cozy game with combat and rebuilding society sounds great.

Intro

In Garden Story you travel between about twenty small areas in which you gather resources, fight enemies and build/repair stuff. Combat is mostly hitting people with a sword/umbrella/scythe, though sometimes you use a sort of fishing rod from a distance. You progress through 4 different towns, fighting a boss in a dungeon at the end of the first three. The final boss requires you to fight a stronger version of these first.

The Good

• Cute style.
• Decent story.
• Solid boss fights.
• A few nice pushing puzzles.
• Death only costs you some money.
• Neat skill system.
• You can roll. It's fun.
• Feels like it's own thing.
• Rebuilding is nice.

The Bad

• Rebuilding is limited to a few bridges and two houses.
• You can only save by sleeping, which requires it to be evening or night.
• You level towns by doing repetitive daily quests.
• Slightly grindy upgrade/repair system.
• Some of the upgrades require certain attacks and this isn't very clear.

The Ugly

• Really clunky keyboard-only controls. E.g. A is menu, S/D goes between pages.
• You can only see daily quests on quest boards in the town you have the quests for.
• Only the main menu pauses the game, not map/inventory/quests/etc.
• You have to redo the pushing puzzles every time you replay the third dungeon for resources/quests. Just... why?
• There are only 4 slots on your hotkey bar for 10+ items.
• You do a little twirl that changes your facing when switching weapons.
• The dearth of hotkeys, the switch-twirl and the double cost to upgrade weapons (upgrade town then grind resources) means you will be using the same two weapons (umbrella then scythe) for 95% of the game. And the game is mostly using those weapons.

Conclusion

Despite all the negative points, Garden Story is a fun little game and i considered giving it 4 stars. It just comes up short, it's like a 6,5.

I don't know what it is about this game that absolutely got me. I sounded insane when I tried to talk to my friends about it because I was so passionate but they thought the concept sounded stupid: how can you be so worked up about a grape?

Well, it's a very cute little grape going on a beautiful little adventure.

I picked this up on the Switch because it's on almost every cozy gaming list, and there is a definite reason. The gameplay is pretty relaxing, it's got that pixel graphic charm, and a story that is so sweet and interesting to follow.

I will say that if you are looking for a cozy game, 100% pick this up. That being said:

• While the story is told well and is in itself beautiful, especially with the lovely world design and the music, at times it got a little ahead of itself or was a bit difficult to understand what exactly the characters were saying. The writing got a bit muddled and I think certain explanations weren't clear (don't worry though, the ending is very understandable).
• I wish there was some sort of post-game story or side quests, other than completing collections. I think there is an opportunity there that was missed. Though perhaps it's to give leeway for a sequel? (Which I would get in a heartbeat.)

While it's available on platforms like Nintendo Switch and Steam, it's still a small indie game and I give it 5 stars to rate it within it's own category. It's not perfect, and I wish there was more to it, but I had fun and I looked forward to playing it every time I had the chance.