Grow Home Review

Grow Home Review

If you are a Playstation plus member you will know, each month Sony gives us a handful of games to download every month. The titles we get are often smaller indie titles. Here’s a review of this months headliner title called Grow Home. This title was voted for by Playstation plus subscribers. Each month subscribers can choose from 3 main titles, that will be released alongside other titles. Grow Home is a procedurally generated adventure game that I would describe as an exploration game.

Grow Home immediately hit me as being a very unique experience that drops you into a colourful world to explore. You play as a robot called B.U.D. aka Botanical Utility Droid. The game at its core is about exploration and discovery. You control each hand for grabbing objects, you can jump, glide and later on in the game you can use a jetpack. The controls are easy to use and give you a real sense of achievement as you scale massive obstacles high in the sky. The game focuses on climbing large plant like structures that can evolve and grow as you reach certain points.

Grow Home Review

Although the game is extremely good looking and the gameplay at first seems unique it can slowly become fairly repetitive. The game is simply about climbing and jumping around. It’s a game that is best played in short bursts if you feel like exploring a colorful world. I would suggest you play this game if you liked games like Proteus, which is about exploring a vibrant environment.

The aim of the game is to collect seeds that allow you to grow sections of the large plant like structures. You need to grow your plant towards the stars. That being said there’s not much more going on. There’s not really any kind of story at all. For me that ok though as games like this aren’t about being told a story. Grow Home is about exploring and creating your own stories through discovery and imagination. The aim of the game is clear. You have to keep growing the plants repeatedly until you complete the game. I felt at times as if the game was missing something to really elevate it to a higher level (no pun intended). Its obvious there’s no story and I feel that if there was a hint of some kind of narrative it could have made this a stronger title. I enjoyed the sound in this game, which was melodic and minimal which helps to create a relaxing atmosphere whilst exploring.

Grow Home Review

The best reason to play Grow Home is the world it presents and the way in which you explore it. The fact that the controls are easy to use, make it satisfying to explore the bright and vibrant world. The game manages to use the idea of climbing in a very unique way that I feel would work well in other games that involve scaling obstacles. I found the game to be a relaxing experience as I found myself jumping around looking for crystals and heading higher into the sky.

In summary Grow Home is a game worth jumping into this month with the Playstation plus offer. I would say that it’s a short game that’s around 5-6 hours that is best to be played in short sessions. The fact that there’s no story makes the game feel a bit empty at times, but the brilliant controls and interesting environmental design made it feel fun. As this is a ‘free’ game, it’s worth giving a go if you enjoy games that focus on exploration and discovery.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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