Forager

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Forager is a Top-Down Action-RPG that shares a lot in common with games like Minecraft, where you’re plopped down in a world with a bunch of resources and no real goals, and players choose how to proceed.

To be clear, this game doesn’t have the same elements of exploration and creativity that fueled Minecraft – you’ll be stuck on your little island, which you will gradually grow into a chain of islands, and your only options for what to create are a preset selection of craftable tools and items that gradually expands as you gain new abilities and resources. However, this game definitely evokes the feeling of resource-gathering in Minecraft.

You will spend a lot of time in this game gathering resources. This is a time-consuming process that generally requires hacking away at rocks and trees, then eating something to replenish stamina, and maybe occasionally going over to one of your crafting stations to turn one resource into something else.

Where in Minecraft you would find more resources by exploring, here they are constantly spawning into the environment, oftentimes right in a path you’ve been trying to clear or a workspace you’re needing to remain accessible. One of this game’s frequent frustrations is having to stop what you’re doing every once and a while just to clear space, even if it means you’re gathering a resource you don’t really need at the moment.

While players will gradually craft newer and better stuff to use, the two biggest factors in your game progress will be your level and your coins. The former is what gates off new abilities needed to even consider crafting new items, and the latter is what gates off expansions to your island, meaning that if you want to see more of this game, you need to grind for gold (at least until your abilities unlock other options for making money).

This game’s trailers show a lot of dungeons and combat, and those are present here, but don’t be fooled – you will be spending a lot of time toiling away at gathering resources before you ever see a single enemy or dungeon beyond an occasional slime or angry bull.

Graphically, this game has a simple, but appealing sprite-based look to it. It’s nothing truly extraordinary, but it works well for the game. I actually have to take a moment to compliment the sound in this game, as the various things going on in the environment all have distinct sounds, and often this is as good an indication as any when a crafting station is finished, or a trap has caught food for you.

My main complaint about this game is also arguably its primary form of gameplay – the grinding. It’s not just that you’ll be spending a lot of time gathering resources, but that for a long time in the game, even just gathering one resource will take a few seconds for every rock and tree you hack at. Later, you gradually upgrade your gear, but for hours of gameplay you’ll have to take four or five wacks at everything you want to break down before it can be gathered. This can be a mundane, relaxing endeavor… but it can also get maddeningly tedious, especially if you really want to get to a specific goal, but the game just keeps making you do busywork to even hope of getting there.

There are also issues with hit detection in this game. Players don’t attack or dig where they swing so much as they use their equipment on a selected square, and the game is finicky about what square is being highlighted at any given time. This means that when you actually do encounter an enemy that doesn’t just sit and wait for you to kill it, combat can be frustrating as you dart in and out and swing at it in hopes that you’ll even connect.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty about Forager that’s enjoyable. While the resource-gathering can get tedious, it’s also relaxing in much the same way as it is in Minecraft. However, Minecraft also gives players a world to explore and an infinite amount of creative possibilities, and while Forager offers an interesting and growing list of abilities that set it apart, the fact that these abilities are locked behind level-ups that require significant grinding makes them feel less like a reason to play the game and more of a reward for putting up with the game. Fans of slower-paced games with resource gathering will still want to give this game a try, but others may want to just stick with games like Minecraft and Terraria.

tl;dr – Forager is a game that plays sorta’ like a Top-Down 2D Minecraft, and players looking for a decent crafting and resource-gathering game will find it to have some solid gameplay. However, none of Minecraft’s exploration or creativity is here, the resource-gathering can get pretty tedious at times, and the hit detection is problematic. Still worth a try, but it’s not without its problems.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}