You may recall my post expressing excitement when the game was first announced. I was lucky enough to get into the Coziness test and I’ve had multiple people ask about my thoughts so I figured I’d just write up a post! The Petit Planet Coziness test officially ended November 30th, so it feels like a good time to finally get this up.
A short version is that I think if you like Animal Crossing, this takes a lot of the things that made Animal Crossing fun and manages to make them a lot more relaxing to the point where even the crafting didn’t kill me like most games. The biggest issue, however, is that for some reason, the game features AI through two NPCs (one help bot and one in the multiplayer area) that while you can ignore them entirely like I did, I am really disappointed by its inclusion, and I am hoping these things will be changed/removed by the proper release. There is so much I genuinely really enjoyed, but I do not want to support the use of AI.
With that out of the way, I do want to talk about the things I am enjoying about the game (and some things that are a bit more frustrating or feel odd) which also just highlights how incredibly unnecessary any AI use is needed in the game. Literally, if they took the game as it currently is, removed the AI features, and put it up for sale, I would buy it immediately. I already found the game so enjoyable and fun right off the bat and it’s still in its Alpha stages.
You can definitely see parts that are less developed in the sense that there are only a small selection of characters who can move to your town, the relatively small shop, and only a couple of those characters have special quests to unlock more of their friendship levels, but none of that really took away from me just genuinely enjoying the game. There also was definitely more needed for character customizing– I know I wanted more pink dresses, better ponytails, and I kind of wish we could change our height because our character feels way too big next to some items.
I would say the thing I had the biggest issue with is that currency earning felt very unbalanced. Most things don’t sell for much and so you really had to be constantly grinding to make enough Dough for items. While things do come back pretty often, it still felt like a lot right off the bat that so many items could be 500-2K when most things sell for like 20-30 at most. One thing I really wanted was a pink car skin, but it was 5,000 Dough. I also hit a point pretty quickly where my shop had a daily store item that would cost 2,000 alongside a Dino Onesie that was 15,000. Even if I put in more time than I did (and I do truly think it’s a game I could put in that 10-15 hours’ time like I did with Animal Crossing) as I tried to keep it at 2-3 hours a day due to knowing things would be wiped, I could see it getting really frustrating to spend so much time and barely manage to get some of the things I wanted even though the game does run on real time.
While Dough was the main “normal” currency, there was also Loomi which the best way I can think of describing it is like the Nook Miles of the game. You earn it through tasks/achievements you can complete and while you do eventually unlock some Daily Loomi tasks as well (which is important as you will eventually run out of the other tasks as they’re one and done), there is a cap on how many you can complete each day which kind of ruins the point.
A lot of items that cost Loomi are also on the more expensive side and while there was a point where I felt I had a good rhythm to having enough each day, that did quickly end when I just was running out of one-and-done tasks. Similarly, several items in the shop would go up in price each time you bought them such as the Battery needed for Starsea Voyages (Essentially the games’ version of Nook Mile Islands) and a specific clothing blindbox. I already dislike blindboxes so it going up in price each time was super frustrating, but at least it was another in-game currency.
The last type of sort-of currency were the little puffballs that you earned while just doing things. They are entirely used to level-up Villagers essentially. For the most part, these were actually pretty simple to earn– the only ones that I had a horrible time earning were the Water ones as no matter how much I fished, it seemed I rarely actually got any. All the others were fine though.
You might be thinking “But what about monetization/gacha”? There actually wasn’t any during the Coziness Test/Alpha so I have no clue what could end up being. I’ve seen people thinking Residents which I personally hope not as there are various things unlocked through Residents and customization is such a big deal.
That said, my personal thought was maybe “Luca Fruits”, which are what customize your planet. They are earned both through general gameplay and villagers, but while I hope it won’t actually be the case, it’s something I wouldn’t be surprised if there were premium shop ones.
While I’m not super attached to the purple grass (Pink grass when?), I do love the Sunset Cliffs a lot which is a Luca Fruit I received from one of the residents.
Of course, maybe they will do something entirely different like expansion packs or something. My personal take though is I’d love if they considered making the game a one-time purchase thing instead.
Moving onto the gameplay stuff, you may be wondering how this game managed to be even more relaxing to me and those are essentially a combination of two things:
-No inventory limit
-Most things don’t run away and disappear
The lack of any kind of inventory limit and easy tool switching made it really easy to just do everything I wanted to without going back and forth. That said, you did need to eat fruit or meals you can make to keep your energy up for most tools which could get tiring pretty fast. One of the nice things with the Starsea Voyages is you can go with up to two of your Residents who would essentially help gather things for you which made it a lot more fun. I’d love if this is something they could do on your planet as well if you became good enough friends with then.
When you first do Starsea Voyages, your battery runs out very fast, but it did feel like I was able to upgrade at a decent pace at least which is nice as I really enjoyed doing them. They often had puzzle elements which I found really fun.
As for the second point, you can run all you like with fish, and they won’t run away. You have to actually land your bobber on the fish rather than worrying about being close enough and possibly scaring them– there is no fear of that here. Bugs may start flying, but you can chase after them and catch them. Break your line while fishing? It’s okay, you can try again. This is something I got so used to being something I really had to be careful and stress over and it’s the first time I’ve ever found it relaxing and forgiving.
The ONLY things that really require any kind of more stealth-patience are some of the Sea Creatures like Crabs and Lobsters to the point where it’s almost odd as everything else is so lax. Despite that, I still had a lot of fun getting different ones. The only thing that was frustrating sometimes was when two were next to each other and catching one meant I left “stealth” mode so the other would run away immediately after. Some you could chase and catch, but many would just dig into the sand be gone.
Anyway, I just really hope they reconsider certain things and I’m looking forward to seeing how the game further develops if so.