Strange Horticulture Review: Nintendo Switch eShop
My Review:
4 of 5 Hearts
- An interesting mystery story, masterfully told
- Deliciously dark atmosphere featuring calm yet haunting music and soundscapes
- Unique and engaging puzzle-solving gameplay
- Tedious zoom process necessary to read small text
- Short playthrough with low replay value
Game Synopsis
Strange Horticulture is an occult-themed puzzle game with an emphasis on discovering and properly labeling plants.
Sounds boring?
I can assure you, it’s anything but!
As the owner of a plant shop, aptly named Strange Horticulture, the world around you unravels through chatting with your customers. As the world is gradually built through the stories your customers share, you soon become entangled in a mystery featuring dark beasts, rituals, and perhaps even murder.
All the while, you solve small puzzles to discover plants in the land of Undermere, and additional puzzles to identify your new finds.
Serenaded by the soft rivulets of rain glancing against the shop’s windowpanes and beautifully subtle yet enrapturing sound design, you’ll feel completely immersed in this world during your stay.
Gameplay
As previously mentioned, the gameplay in Strange Horticulture centers around following clues to discover new plants. However, merely discovering a new plant doesn’t identify it. To label your new find, you’ll need to wait for a customer searching for a plant to enter your shop, then consult your handy-dandy botany book.
The puzzles to find the plants consist of some sort of clue, either in the form of your personal clue card deck or a letter delivered to the shop, and your map of the local land of Undermere.
As for labelling your plants, you’ll need to use your customer’s desired uses and appearance descriptions to consult your book, and then choose the plant that best fits both sources.
The gameplay is novel, challenging enough to keep you interested, and downright fun. If you have a mind for mystery, you’ll be delighted with Strange Horticulture’s gameplay.
There are even hints available within the game, so if a clue leaves you stumped about your next plant’s whereabouts, you can get a clue without looking up a tutorial.
Art and Sound
As much as I adore Strange Horticulture’s gameplay, it’s made even more engaging with a backdrop of beautiful 2D art and sound designed to draw you deeper into the story.
It’s hard to describe this in a way that makes sense, but the sound is as on-brand as the art, if not more so. A page turn doesn’t sound like a flipped piece of paper. It sounds like an old, delicate sheet of parchment being drawn from one dusty cover to another.
Further, it’s frequently raining in the game, and the sound effects are truly breathtaking. It’s rare to experience such an immersive world, but the creators of Strange Horticulture held nothing back in creating this enrapturing game.
Drawbacks
This game has very few drawbacks, but there are a few worth mentioning.
First and foremost, my single biggest criticism is the zoom mechanic. Much of the text in the game is small, and to read it, you’ll have to zoom in and out regularly. This turns out being pretty tedious, especially when a simple UI adjustment would’ve negated the need for it. You have to zoom in and then scroll around to find the text you’re looking for, and then zoom back out to continue playing. It’s a strange spot of oversight in an otherwise very polished and thoughtful game.
Further, the game is pretty short. It took me around X hours to complete. However, though I’m not usually a fan of short games, this is a notable exception. The game does feel finished, and it wraps up nicely. It’s a suitable length for the story it’s trying to tell, and the experience it’s trying to give the player.
You may’ve noticed that I put low replayability as a negative in the “cons” section at the beginning of this review, and that’s true–for me. However, if you are more of a completionist than I am, then the game will actually have decent replay value; there are 8 different endings.
However, in my opinion, the subtleties in choices made from one playthrough to another really makes the replay aspect feel like more of a chore to me than a new reason to play.
The Consensus
Ultimately, Strange Horticulture is a game that mystery fans shouldn’t miss. It brings you the experience of reading a mystery novel on a stormy night, but instead of merely watching the story unfold, you become a part of it. Strange Horticulture sucks you in and makes you a part of its haunting, fascinating, and unique adventure.
Truly, and I mean this: just buy it. Strange Horticulture is a story, an experience, a cast of characters, and a cozy-yet-haunting atmosphere that you won’t soon forget.
Mystery lovers rejoice!
