The Garden Path Review

I’m not a green thumb. Throw me out into the back garden and I’ll just stare until the weeds appear and ask someone else to pull them out for me. It’s not that I don’t like the outdoors, the sun has some redeeming qualities, but there’s something about the video game equivalent that appeals far more than the real thing. Maybe it’s the colourful characters you befriend along the way, more likely the fact that it doesn’t haunt you every time you look out the window and see the overgrowth swallowing the post box.

You might recall I praised my time with Cozy Grove, the game that got me through the dark times of 2021, and in many ways The Garden Path flows with the same, nurturing touch. You enter the lush, delicate environment with nothing but a backpack full of dreams, slowly befriending those that appear and carving out your own piece of paradise with the barest of objectives to guide you.

You can easily lose yourself within The Garden Path’s charming visuals, a creative canvas of earthly tones that alters from sunrise to sunset in real time to your system clock a la Animal Crossing. Its hand-drawn aesthetics are a pleasure to watch in motion, layers of detail grounding the world with familiarity despite its curious collection of critters that provide both quests to complete and items to buy or trade for.

General Kenobear?

Unlike Nintendo’s venerable franchise, there’s a greater sense of depth and discovery here than simply digging up fossils or buying items at a general store before closing time. There’s a larger number of tools and items to play with, all of which are easy to use, that feel more realistic than many other games of this ilk – it’s not about throwing seeds and growing plants as quickly as possible to build the funds.

The Garden Path prides itself on its sense of calm and simplicity, the cozy lifestyle as you build your home and furnish it just how you like. There is a guide in case you want a little more guidance, cleverly involving star charts that point you in the right direction, but it’s an optional form of play. The game nudges you to complete objectives but doesn’t force you down that path, nor lock items out of reach, though it’s worth completing them to get the most out of the first few hours.

The world itself is a joy to explore, but the UI leaves a little to be desired. The menus can be a little clumsy to scroll back and forth through and switching the items in your hand is a pain. I did appreciate the creative attempts to change things up in certain situations, having you move your fishing rod within four quadrants of a square to ‘feel’ for the fish and their musical tone instead of throwing the hook out there and waiting for a bite (as in every other fishing mini game in existence), but the text and menus could have been simplified a little further, reducing the number of button presses needed to get from A to B.

One of the more unique and cute takes on fishing

It can also be a little daunting trying to find your way around, especially in the early going. You’ve got a map on you at all times, but given how much of the environment looks and feels alike until you start making it your own, it can be easy to feel a tad lost amongst the trees. At least finding visitors is easy, as they appear as markers on your map, and the time of day plus the weather conditions can determine who you may come across.

The Garden Path rewards patience, which is like a real garden? I ask since I have no experience. At all. The developers specifically suggest players jump in for just a little while each day, and that’s the right call to make. As much as Stardew Valley chews up more social hours than sleep for a lot of us, it’s nice to just pick up a game for a few minutes each day, check in with your garden and the locals, and hop out without having to fret over a multitude of status bars, notifications or side quests begging you to complete them. That was my biggest gripe the longer I put into Cozy Grove, that need to find more and more items to complete another objective just to move things along. Here, your reward is a simple sense of accomplishment for whatever it is you want to do.

Final Thoughts

A calm and thoughtful experience, The Garden Path doesn’t worry itself over mission objectives or the need to build a fortune over time. Coupled with some impressive visuals and an audio score that relaxes the soul, it’s an experience many will relish compared to some of its older brethren within the farming sim space. There’s plenty of creativity on show, even if some of it feels a little overdone in places, but you can feel the love and respect for your time within every wonderfully hand-drawn pixel.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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