Even as I sit down to write this review I am intermittently stopping to water my crops, plants and trees. This is not something I expected when I first loaded up Castaway Paradise. I knew the basic premise. You end up on a desert island with some eccentric individuals and begin running small errands for them. This may sounds basic, and it is! But it’s this gameplay loop that has kept me up until 2am the past three nights.
The quests generally involve delivering something to someone else on the island, planting a tree, flower or crop, catching a specific insect or fish or some form of decorating. It is a pretty repetitive loop, but it really gets it’s claws in to you once you get the hang of what’s going on.
It took someone bringing this to my attention as I have never played the series before, but apparently this is basically an Animal Crossing ‘lite’ experience. If that is the case then as far as I am concerned they can’t release a new entry for the Switch fast enough! The portability of the Switch would take a game like this to the next level.
Graphically the game could be described as basic but it is not without it’s charms. Each character is unique and different while the vibrant colours really lend themselves well to the desert island setting. For a while in gaming everyone was striving to make realistic graphics and I am happy to see a trend of developers opting to go in a more cartoonish direction. It fits the game perfectly.
The sound is fairly basic. There isn’t any voice acting between the characters but that doesn’t subtract from the experience at all as the aesthetic if anything would made voiced characters seem out of place. Instead you will be listening to the same catchy tune throughout. After a while I think my mind blocked it out, but I have been told by Jessica that it does in-fact become grating after a period of time.
The game also sports a currency system. There is a huge catalogue of items to buy from furniture, clothes, seeds, flowers, fruit and more. You can sell unwanted items in the shops for extra gems. This is best utilised by planting acorn and banana trees, shaking the fruit off them, re-watering the tree to produce more fruit and selling what you just acquired. Fruit is a hot ticket item on the island and this method will quickly have you flush with gems.
It is also possible to make your existing money work for you with the banking and stocks options. In banking you can either deposit 100 gems for 5 minutes and receive 50% interest. 2000 gems for 6 hours and receive 30% interest or if you are super flush at the time 5000 gems for 24 hours and get 20% interest. Stocks also give you 3 buy in options. The first is between 1 and 10 gems per share, the second is between 20 and 100 gems per share and the third is between 80 and 140 gems per share. You can watch the price fluctuate in real time or check back often and sell when you are going to make a profit. Buy low and sell high is the name of the game.
Outside of the quests you get from the locals and banking options there are plenty of other things to keep you busy. You can donate fish, bugs and shells to a museum on the island. Donating one of every possible variation will net you the collectible trophies. Bugs and shells you have a visual idea of what you are catching/picking up before you do so, but the fish are just black silhouettes and so it can be very grindy when you get down to the last two or three.
Planting crops and flowers is another core gameplay mechanic with each type taking different lengths of time to develop and needing watered a few times during the process. All times given, whether is be waiting for crops/trees or interest at the bank are counted in real time but the timer continues even when you aren’t playing the game. This encourages players to turn the game on for about half an hour a day to make sure your island is in order and progressing nicely.
Thankfully there is no penalty for not returning to the game for any amount of time. Say you need to water a tree three times before it will be fully grown. You water it once and it says you need to wait 12 hours before watering for the second time but real life takes over and it is a week before you return to the game. All that means is the tree will be sitting waiting to be watered for the second time. There are also cool rewards for coming back to the game day after day in the form of items and cosmetics
This laid back approach to the progression is a theme throughout the game. You can do everything at your own pace and there is no penalty for taking your time. This results in one of the most chilled out and relaxing gaming experiences I can remember. Last night I sat watching TV on my laptop while switching between watering plants and doing some fishing. The game makes for a great second screen experience.
One aspect of the game I didn’t delve too deep in to was the building and decorating. Usually in games like the Sims this is my favourite aspect, but something about it just made it feel tacked on here. If there was any sort of online integration where you could visit other peoples islands I would be more inclined to try and create something cool, but while there are a generous amount of items to use it just wasn’t for me.
In terms of trophies the game does have a platinum. Nothing involved is overly difficult but it will be time consuming. You can speed the process up by disconnecting the PS4 from the internet and altering the time and date on the console itself. This will speed up the growing of flowers, crops and trees. It also re-spawns shells on the beach each day. However catching all fish, bugs and levelling your character up to Lvl.34 in order to unlock all the seeds needed to grow every flower is a grind and will require a good 30 hour investment.
If you are a fan of games like Animal Crossing and want a laid back, chilled experience with a game that sports a surprisingly addictive gameplay loop I highly recommend checking Castaway Paradise out. We need more experiences like this on the Playstation 4 and for that to happen we need to support the developers who are bringing them to us.
VdZe
Reviewed on PS4. Also available on Xbox One, PC, Android and iOS. Review code provided by the publisher.