127 people found this review helpful
19 people found this review funny
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 6.1 hrs on record
Posted: 23 Aug, 2015 @ 3:03am
Updated: 23 Aug, 2015 @ 4:10pm

10/10
Beep boop.

Overview

Grow Home is a third-person adventure game featuring an aphonic humanoid robot named B.U.D (Botanical Utility Droid). B.U.D starts his journey empty-handed, low on juice and faced with a burdensome task: grow a single plant all the way up into the stratosphere to collect the seeds it produces in order to save his home planet.

Delightedly, playing Grow Home is not a burdernsome task in the slightest and I found myself quickly tearing through the game until nothing was left to achieve. Grow Home brings everything that matters.

Story

Story? Oh yeah. You gotta climb a plant and something something... Jetpacks and Leafgliders something something save your planet...

Gameplay

This is where Grow Home scores all of its points. Like, literally all 10 of them. From the instant that B.U.D is in your control, you feel it. The awkward, lumbering, procedurally-animated mess of fun that is B.U.D's mobility instantly sinks into you and you can't help but smile just a little bit as he trips and stumbles around. Then, after rolling down a cliffside and short-circuiting in the mountain's surrounding waters, you smile a lot.

You start with limited abilities: jumping, climbing and... tumbling (not convinced that this is actually an ability). After a few unavoidably chuckle-worthy mistakes, the game develops into something intuitive and simple. Using the controller's shoulder buttons as left and right claws, B.U.D can climb any surface and start to crawl his way up the Star Plant. The feeling of freedom delivered by B.U.D's mobility is simply excellent, allowing you to gradually move more fluidly and quickly as you upgrade the clumsy robot's abilities.

Throughout your vertical expedition, you'll encounter a fun mix of strange creatures, mysterious caves, vibrant vegetation and shiny minerals on unique floating islands. A quickly-revolving day-and-night cycle further accents and dynamically changes the colorful areas as you scrutinize them for gems; glowing crystals that are used to upgrade B.U.D's capabilities, including a jetpack amongst a couple of other useful tweaks.

Your ultimate goal is to grow plants (you literally drive plant stems forward as they grow miraculously fast from under you) into the surrounding islands in order to feed the lands' mineral energy to the central Star Plant, grow it to fruition and harvest its star seeds.

Audio

With a simple ambient soundtrack, the expected sound effects and the occasional beep boop sound expresed by B.U.D, the audio compliments the game at all times. I really don't have anything negative to say about the audio. That said, nothing really stood out either, it just worked its charm obscurely while I enjoyed a fine slice of good video game.

Technical

Grow Home offers every basic customization option you've come to expect from a game. The game runs smoothly at all times and, for the 6-hour long 100% complete expedition I ate through, I encountered no outstanding bugs or technical issues with the game. It just works so well.

The TL;DR

The ride is short, but the drive is pretty wild. I haven't played a game that just felt this good in the longest of times. I thought about taking a notch out from the score for the rather small amount of content to dig into, but taking the game's very fair price into consideration, I couldn't do it.

Play Grow Home now. Oh, and use a controller. It's awesome.
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