Pine Hearts

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Pine Hearts, released in 2024 on PC and Nintendo Switch, is a difficult game to define. I’ll get into the details later, but for now I’ll just call this an Action-RPG. And this game’s premise has players taking the role of Tyke, an avid mountaineer returning to a mountain he visited with his father when he was a kid and now looking to add this peak to his list. But to do so, he’ll need to help campers and tourists on the mountain with their own problems, and also remember lessons learned the last time he was here with his father.

The presentation here uses very simple colorful cel-shaded 3D visuals that aren’t impressive in any way but are still somewhat appealing, though they can get repetitive at times and there’s some noticeable pop-in. This is backed by a lovely relaxed instrumental soundtrack that highlights this game’s extremely chill vibes.

As for the gameplay… here’s my problem describing this game. If there were enemies to fight, this would clearly be an Action-RPG with similarities to games like the classic Zelda franchise, but there are no enemies. If this game was more dialogue heavy and/or tasked players with solving item-based puzzles, I might say it was a Graphic Adventure… but your character doesn’t speak or select dialogue options and the only sort of item-based puzzles you encounter are being told to get a thing and then getting a thing. If you could jump this might qualify as a 3D Platformer, but the only time you do any jumping is at context-sensitive spots. Heck, if the main gameplay had any actual puzzles to solve I might call this a character-based Puzzle game, but the only things you find resembling a real puzzle are few and far between.

Instead the gameplay takes the form of wandering around and collecting things, eventually getting enough of a particular thing to gain access to areas you couldn’t before. As I mentioned, you’ll be gathering objects to help people, who will in turn either reward you with a new tool or teardrop-shaped collectibles, and there are also teardrops just scattered around like Mario’s coins for picking up. Gain enough teardrops and you unlock a new memory and gain a new ability, like the ability to push over trees to make bridges, or climb up designated cliff faces. Using these new abilities and tools, you gain access to new areas to collect more stuff, and so on.

However, since collecting stuff doesn’t really involve any sort of skill beyond looking around and finding stuff, the only challenge the gameplay provides is not knowing where you need to go or what objects to interact with. And one of this game’s biggest frustrations is that it doesn’t indicate to players what people and objects can be interacted with and which can’t, so you may find yourself trying to interact with everything just in case something works.

Sometimes interacting with some obstacles can call for you to input a certain analog stick motion or sequence… or you can change this in the settings to be a gesture made with motion controls, or just a simple button press (with the button press being the least tedious option). However, none of this requires any sort of skill, it’s just extra busywork.

I will admit, there is some enjoyment to be had exploring the world in Pine hearts and collecting stuff, especially with the pleasant presentation making for a chill experience. But it feels so empty without puzzles, enemies, or any sort of challenge whatsoever beyond the frustration of not knowing where you need to go. Rather, it just feels like doing a lot of busywork before the metaphorical gate to the next section opens up for you to do more busywork. While not a bad game, it feels like a pretty pointless and shallow one.

tl;dr – Pine Hearts is an Action-RPG… well, without the action… or any deep RPG elements. In this game, players take the role of a mountaineer helping tourists on a mountainside as he tries to get to the mountain’s top. This game has a nice relaxed tone, but all you do is busywork going around collecting things until you’re let into the next area. It’s not terrible, but it is still ultimately a shallow and tedious experience.

Grade: C

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