Grow Up Review | A Short Yet Whimsically Unforgettable Journey
After playing Grow Up, I can’t help but think it’s passed the threshold and has become one of my favorite games now. It’s the perfect…
After playing Grow Up, I can’t help but think it’s passed the threshold and has become one of my favorite games now. It’s the perfect “exploration adventure” game. The mechanics are great. The freedom is awesome. It would be difficult to not enjoy playing it. Weirdly enough, I’d say that this is probably also one of my all-time favorite Ubisoft games. You wouldn’t expect that from such a short experience, but believe me! This is a top-notch, exceedingly well-done game, and it’s something that I’m going to be recommending and gifting to people for a long time. It blew past all of my expectations and then some.
Before this, I played the first game, Grow Home, which is great by itself. Grow Up, somehow feels as though every positive thing in Grow Home has been iterated on, and evolved to an even more spectacular level. Now, we don’t have nearly as dizzying of heights, but the exploration, and the adventure therein, are some of the most top-notch stuff you can find in the genre. It’s a very impressive sequel. The new traversal mechanics were incredible, the glider in particular is such a welcome addition, and the ball mode was so much more fun than I thought it would be. It’s stellar.
The game is a bit short, but I find that to its advantage! I don’t think this is something you sit down and binge in a session, but it rather serves the player better in shorter play sessions. Or, maybe you’re binging another game, and you need a break from the monotony of whatever that could be. Grow Home can serve to fill the gaps in your life with some downright whimsical experiences.
The only minor issue I ever had was finding stuff in the end game. There’s not a compass that points to where objects are, and even the crystal locator isn’t as helpful as I’d like it to be. But it’s still so much fun. Grow Up emphasizes exploration and adventure and succeeds fantastically in giving you an experience that is practically the epitome of both. I am shocked at how good it was during the 4-hours I played. Will be returning for years to come.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.