If I had to describe Botanicula in one word, it would be pulchritudinous… okay, maybe not. But I would qualify it as cute and adorable. It deserves attention for many reasons, but mainly because it is an experience that will send you back into childhood, and will soften your stone-cold killa gamer heart and pump the cynicism from your veins.
Up on the tree-realm of Botanicula lives a flora and fauna of the most bizarre and marvelous walks of life. It is a melting pot of weird, whimsical, and all-round charming and adorable. It is a place of childlike wonders and exploration, and when this paradise is threatened to end, five friends decide to take action and save it from the encroaching darkness.
In the aspect of spiders, the antagonists come to devour the essence from the glowing tree, and the most monstrous of them absorbs the life from its fruits. One, however, falls off and is picked up by a little acorn-creature, which together with its friends set out on quite the adventure to save their world from demise.
The band of unlikely heroes point-and-click their way throughout the glowing microcosm of their tree-world, helping out where they can, solving puzzle and progressing through their quest with smarts and skill. Along their way, they discover the curious denizens of their neighbourhood in a fashion that feels like a collecting of stories.
The visual artistry of Botanicula is quite distinctive, resembling a pretty collage of paper cutouts that come to life in a world that looks painted to perfection. It is organic, vivid and striking, applying the same consistent style even as the stage itself shifts from plant to fungi to bacteria-like. It manages to remain charming throughout the whole game.
To accompany its lovely visuals the game has a joyful soundtrack which is, quite frankly, the strongest element of the game. The music in the game is adorable, an assortment of sounds of nature, bells (and maybe some percussion and string instruments here and there) and cutesy singing. But when it comes to the sounds uttered from the little creatures of Botanicula, it sounds like overjoyed grown-ups on LSD entertaining newborns… and it meshes perfectly with the art-style. The tree-dwellers chirp and quip and mumble in lieu of speech and utter terrified little cries when faced with danger.
Botanicula is an easy game with quite a nice amount of gameplay hours. It is not something that is designed to frustrate you as this would take away from the lovable nature of the game. Its puzzles are simplistic and straight-forward, often only requiring you to click things in arbitrary order just for the pleasure of witnessing charming little animations from our tree-dwelling heroes, which in my opinion feels exactly what the developers were aiming for. You see, Botanicula to me doesn’t feel as much of a point-and-click adventure as it is an audiovisual experience. It feels like a singing, interactive tableau that could ease the mind and calm the soul. There truly isn’t much else I could say about it. I should probably conclude by saying it’s a game that will restore your innocence and rekindle your imagination… but maybe it won’t do any of this. Maybe all it is capable of doing is put a smile on your face, and that is certainly worth it.
Now go play it before I make this any more saccharine.
In the aspect of spiders, the antagonists come to devour the essence from the glowing tree, and the most monstrous of them absorbs the life from its fruits. One, however, falls off and is picked up by a little acorn-creature, which together with its friends set out on quite the adventure to save their world from demise.
The band of unlikely heroes point-and-click their way throughout the glowing microcosm of their tree-world, helping out where they can, solving puzzle and progressing through their quest with smarts and skill. Along their way, they discover the curious denizens of their neighbourhood in a fashion that feels like a collecting of stories.
The visual artistry of Botanicula is quite distinctive, resembling a pretty collage of paper cutouts that come to life in a world that looks painted to perfection. It is organic, vivid and striking, applying the same consistent style even as the stage itself shifts from plant to fungi to bacteria-like. It manages to remain charming throughout the whole game.
To accompany its lovely visuals the game has a joyful soundtrack which is, quite frankly, the strongest element of the game. The music in the game is adorable, an assortment of sounds of nature, bells (and maybe some percussion and string instruments here and there) and cutesy singing. But when it comes to the sounds uttered from the little creatures of Botanicula, it sounds like overjoyed grown-ups on LSD entertaining newborns… and it meshes perfectly with the art-style. The tree-dwellers chirp and quip and mumble in lieu of speech and utter terrified little cries when faced with danger.
Botanicula is an easy game with quite a nice amount of gameplay hours. It is not something that is designed to frustrate you as this would take away from the lovable nature of the game. Its puzzles are simplistic and straight-forward, often only requiring you to click things in arbitrary order just for the pleasure of witnessing charming little animations from our tree-dwelling heroes, which in my opinion feels exactly what the developers were aiming for. You see, Botanicula to me doesn’t feel as much of a point-and-click adventure as it is an audiovisual experience. It feels like a singing, interactive tableau that could ease the mind and calm the soul. There truly isn’t much else I could say about it. I should probably conclude by saying it’s a game that will restore your innocence and rekindle your imagination… but maybe it won’t do any of this. Maybe all it is capable of doing is put a smile on your face, and that is certainly worth it.
Now go play it before I make this any more saccharine.
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