Picontier / ピコンティア Reviews

I think this will be a good game eventually, but it's not there yet. It has wonderful pixel art, some interesting characters (like a talking statue and a fish who loves to be... fished?), and the bones of a good farming/village life sim, but right now the story is nonsensical and the pacing is all wrong. I've been playing for six hours and I'm apparently not done with the tutorial, nor do I have the ability to set any goals beyond "run around and collect more random things, I guess?" because so few areas are open for exploration. I still have no idea who I am, why I am running this farm, or why all the people in the village appear to already know me. You also can't reconfigure the somewhat awkward keybindings. This is all stuff that can be changed before full release, and I hope it is, because there is a lot of promise here. But I can't recommend buying it yet.

Can't really recommend without better control scheme, custom keybinds especially but some usage of the mouse, or just not locking cursor would be really helpful. I realize this probably isn't indicative of the content or game as a whole and I would really like to try again after more updates.

This game looks so cool and I really want to play it. However, keyboard controls are awful and there's no options to change the bindings. So I switched to controller, where it turns out the developer has completely ruined the controller bindings too. For some reason the game is using Nintendo Switch controls on an xbox one controller? The select button takes a screenshot. The X, A, Y and B buttons are all jumbled and different buttons work for different prompts. B (usually the cancel/back button) is the confirm button and vice versa for the A button. Trying to make a new save file on the main menu involved me using several different bindings for no rhyme or reason - B to select "new game", then X(??????????) to select that save file, then figuring out which button actually started the game after that. Steam controller configuration is messy as hell and shouldn't be the alternative solution just to *actually* play the game beyond the title screen. If the developers fix the controls for PC/controller I'm happy to give this another try.

If you can get it discounted, it's worth it. At full price, no way. It's got a high nostalgia factor, but the 'plot' is insensible and slow as molasses. All the tutorials could have fit in the first day, but it drags into a full week. By the end of the day, I'm standing around with nothing to do, and my robot keeps chastising me for sleeping early. There definitely needs to be some work on the pacing!!! Overall it is cute and can be relaxing, but be prepared for repetitive and grind-y gameplay.

This is not a fully released game, and it should be in early access. It does have potential, but it's not worth the money. I've encountered a number of various bugs, controls are terrible, inconsistent and can't be changed, music becomes repetitive after an hour, story is barely there.

It's not quite the game I expected, but I've enjoyed it regardless. Like with anything, I have the things I've enjoyed and those that I haven't too much. From what I've enjoyed: 1. It's a quaint, cosy game in a very mysterious world. There's no real tension (the closest I came to it was when the beach crabs suddenly speed up as you run past them), and it's a peaceful game that's good to play when you're trying to forget the pressures of reality 2. The vast cast of characters is intriguing. Zombies, talking trees and sentient computers are all a completely accepted commodity in this world, and I'm fascinated by them all. And I enjoy the friendship quests that you get each time you level up with them 3. The farming aspect is quite unique, from what I've experienced so far. Instead of using all your money to buy seeds, you can get them from shrines which you can use, in turn, to get more HP/SP once you grant them enough of that vegetable. The idea of being able to capture your animals with a drone to bring back to the farm is also intriguing and hilarious! If I could pinpoint anything that would improve this game more, it would be too major points: 1. Better explanations. I spent two in game days running around to solve a quest that I could just go to the general store for. The game seems to assume a level of familiarity of game play that it doesn't quite gives us the tools to figure out completely, leaving us to fumble around for a bit. In saying that, if you get past that initial frustration, it's easy to fall into a rhythm 2. The only real quests in the game are the main story quests and the friendship quests. But it would be nice to have something to do while I'm collecting 100 pieces of wood for the main story and don't yet have a friendship question available. Something like a request board or similar would be amazing, as it would give us a daily goal to focus on while we're doing the major things and/or waiting for trees to regrow, etc. 3. I haven't yet reached a stage where this may change, but, at this point, I'm finding myself a little frustrated with how quickly my stamina and health deplete. Perhaps this will be different when I get better tools/am able to get more stamina, but it's leaving me with very little to do after just watering my plants 4. Perhaps a skill level up system would be a good idea? Either way, I do recommend playing this game if you enjoy this type of play. Don't go into it expecting something huge, but it's intriguing in its own way and quite fun once you get used to the mechanics of it all

I like this game so far! It seems like there is a lot going on already and I can't wait for more to be added. * Cons: **Controls are kind of confusing at times. It isn't always obvious about which controls are used. ** Of course, more will be added so I don't know if this is fair, but the price is pretty high, especially for the amount that is currently in the game.

Overall I love this game so far. Extremely charming and a MUST play for fans of games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons. It is very well made. The world is fascinating with a science fiction twist shrouded in mystery that unfolds as you play. Music reminds me of Pokemon. The villagers are interesting and there seems to be loads of content such as mining and expanding your farm coming soon. The main complaint right now is that to my understanding the game will be released gradually over a six month period in the form of updates so right now I could only play the very first bit of the game which is extremely frustrating. Also the game is very slow, literally, as in the character moves slow and there is no way to run. Hopefully they will add that eventually. I also saw complains about the controls. I play on an X Box controller and it was a little odd at the start but I got used to it quickly so it wasn't a problem. Also you lose more SP and health when it rains which is kind of odd. Hopefully that changes too. Overall I feel like I can't give a whole review because only a small portion of the game is available right now, but so far what I've been playing is extremely addicting and fun. I just hope the rest of the updates don't take to long to come out or this promising game could get forgotten in the explosion of similar and fully completed games like this that are coming out soon in 2021.

It's somewhat enjoyable so I feel bad for rating it badly, but for the current price I can not recommend it. This is said with the fact that it's still EA in mind. It does not lack content, but the content is presented badly and didn't draw me in. It's said to be a slow life RPG, but it feels straight up boring and tedious. I've been playing for four hours and so far have not been told why exactly I'm working on this farm. I have no clue about the intentions of the character I'm playing. If he has any at all. Like "getting tired of economic life" was a common and easy intention in similar games. He just swallow this mystery from the opening cutscene with no interest in uncovering it. I'm hitting wood and essentially running the same path each day to gather ressources and grind seeds, while I feel I should be getting any teaser or development to make me want to stay active. If it is sprinkled out, then it's too scarce. Or maybe story isn't added to the game yet? Other than seeing the number of gold go up, I've got no development happening since the questionable tutorial that hinted at so much more. It doesn't help that my character is an emotionless shell. He could be the main tool to give me a sense of direction. "Man I really want to know what happened, but maybe I should gather some ressources first so I don't starve." Or something coming from the NPC sidekick: "Hey, you should earn some gold so you can rebuild your withered farm while we wait for your guy to come back." If my closest friend/teacher/relative would go missing, I'd set everything on finding them. Or uncover why they went missing. I wouldnt go and harvest plants for an other 3 months. Especially if he didn't tell me that he would go on a journey. What is gives as a synopsis here in the shop does not translate properly to the gameworld. "The main character awakens from a long sleep on the magical island, resumes life from scratch and meets many intriguing islanders." None of the characters in the town have reacted confused to why I am suddenly there. The NPC wants me to go and meet the townsfolk, indicating that I probably don't know them, but they act as if they know me. But at the same time their fruits and items did not wither, so to me it seems like they were not in this slumber that I was in. I'll be happy to revisit this game after release and maybe edit this review, but for now I do not feel the urge to continue.

I really wanted this game to be better than it is. I saw the other negative reviews, but there were enough positive ones that I decided to risk it anyways. Wish I hadn't, the game in its current state is not worth the price. The pros, first: - The pixel art is so cute, that's what drew me to the game in the first place. It's done well and is pleasing to look at, which is something a lot of pixel art games honestly fail at. - The music is nice and relaxing and I don't feel the need to mute it, or get sick of it after awhile. - The fishing is easy, thank god. Way too many games wanna make it difficult for no reason and it kills me. - Resources are plentiful and not hard to obtain. I'm swimming in wood and stone and weeds. - There is a sprint, which is great, but even the walking speed is blessedly fast. It's a welcome change from most crafting/farm/life sims where you're crawling along at a snail's pace and crying wondering when you're gonna unlock something to move faster. - You can nap to recover SP at a cost of losing four hours of your day. - If your backpack is full and you want to pick up something else, you can 'dispose' of an item, and instead of it being gone forever, it will go to a special trash can outside your house where you can pick it back up later as long as you're on the same day. Took me awhile to realise that, but it's useful. - Being able to save when you want, outside of sleeping at night. The cons: The game is SLOW. Yes, it notes in the description that it is a 'slow life rpg' but like. Unfortunately that's not a plus. It feels like the devs have deliberately dragged things out to pad the game. Each day lasts a good chunk of real life time, which would be great if there was actually something to DO. But the days right now are incredibly repetitive. The first few days when you're limited to just your farm and the town are the worst. You're given some tutorial/introductory quests and they could have easily been all on one day, MAYBE two, but instead they're dragged out for almost a week. When you can't go explore anywhere. When all you can do is whack boxes and bushes around town/your farm, and catch a few fish with the pole you find in the fishing shack. And run around and talk to people, if you're into that. Get used to going to bed by noon and having Alia remark on how early it is. And man, I was excited when the game finally opened up, or so I thought. Actually, you only get three more map screens with the first unlock, and it's more of the same. Whack bushes and boxes, grab some foragables, fish from ponds. There are monsters for you to kill, but then you get into another big issue the game has: tools and weapons have durability. In early game when you're more likely to be focusing on upgrading your storage box for the wide array of items you're getting and don't know whether to keep, you're not going to be able to afford to buy a few swords a day, which is what you would need to kill all the monsters in your three screens daily. And because your fishing rod is limited and you don't get the free one or the option to buy one every day, you also can't fish at all the fishing spots every day. I'm on day 16 and I am already SO BORED of cutting weeds with my stick every day to turn them into grass to sell. I want something to DO. I can't even run around gifting the villagers because most of the things they like I don't have access to! Or it's just too expensive to buy. This isn't slow. Slow is giving me a wide variety of things to do and letting me take them at my own pace. This is just agonising boredom that I'm trudging through hoping the game gets better and unlocks more variety of content eventually. Occasionally the villagers will have sidequests, but they're all fetch quests requesting a few items and then you get a crafting or food recipe in return. They don't take more than a few minutes and then you're back to staring at weeds and wondering if you can stand whacking them with your stick yet another day. If there was at least more of a story, it wouldn't be so bad, but unfortunately that suffers too. The game description says it's mysterious and intriguing, and there are hints of that, but it's presented so lackluster that I feel disconnected from it. You're not given any hint as to why you are on this farm working it. Or why you had to spend two years in a magical sleep seemingly shortly after arriving on the island. When you wake up, the villagers all seem to know you and aren't weirded out by you being gone for two years. They actually act like you weren't gone at all, which isn't intriguing, it's bizarre. There's no real feel of getting to know any of them; they babble on about each other or themselves as if you've already known them for ages. Honestly, I feel more connection to the sword guy statue south of my farm who actually doesn't know me and gives me a sense of getting to know him than I do any of the villagers. There's a mystery about a black fog and the professor you came to the island with disappearing, but it's barely mentioned. No one seems bothered by it. They just accept it and continue on with their life??? Again, not intriguing, BIZARRE. I would expect them to either be more alarmed by this or act as if they're deliberately hiding something from me. That would actually make me intrigued instead of weirded out. Other things... controls are awful, as other reviews have noted, and you can't change them. I'm on a ps4 controller which isn't too bad, other than the fact that circle is confirm EXCEPT when it comes to starting a new save or loading your current one, or overwriting it when you sleep... then suddenly it's the square button. Um??? It's also annoying and confusing that I can only use the joystick to walk and the d-pad brings up various other menus. It's horrible UI, all of that should be combined into one single tabbed menu that you can cycle through with left and right shoulder buttons. I was also confused by my inventory screen having a little "equip" box with two slots, and one of the info signs telling me I could "equip" a stick to cut weeds... spent forever trying to get my stick into the equip box with no luck, only to give up and put it in the item bar and then find out that's what you're supposed to do, using it like you would a tool. Apparently the equip box is only for defensive items. That is not clear AT ALL. But this game suffers the same as a lot of indie games do, not giving the player enough information/tutorials on how things work. And yes, I read all the signboards. Another thing, I don't know if this will change further on in the game, but so far it seems the only area of your farm you can decorate is... the tillable dirt area. Where you plant your crops. Again, um??? Why would I want to do that? And when you're given a quest to learn how to cook from one of the villagers, she asks if you have a kitchen and I thought maybe that would be a segue into getting to upgrade your house and get a kitchen, but nope! You're just given the ability to use everyone ELSE'S kitchens. In town. Away from your storage box. Where you likely keep all your cooking ingredients. Sigh. I thought from all those different floor and grass patterns in the blacksmith and general store that decorating would be a nice if low-key aspect to this game, but apparently not. Disappointing. I know this is classed as an rpg (although it's more a mix of rpg and farm sim than straight up rpg) but I still expected more since the ability to decorate does exist. This game has potential. It really does. I think if more thought were put into the story and the pacing, and the UI problems fixed, it would be a lot better. As it is, for 25 USD, I can't recommend it. I'd need more content and a lot more polish. Right now, the only two things that are going to keep me playing are not wanting to completely waste my twenty-five bucks and wanting to see if it does improve as more stuff gets unlocked.