Roots and Sprouts

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

Roots and Sprouts, released in 2026 on Nintendo Switch, is a game that is vaguely similar to Action-RPG and Simulation games without really being either of those – there’s no action to speak of, and there’s neither the depth nor realism you would look for in a Simulation. In any case, this game has players taking the role of a visitor to an island who is harvesting, planting, and cross-breeding plants to try to get new species to find plants that fit the conditions to solve various puzzles, with the ultimate goal of producing the Yggdrasil tree.

The presentation in Roots and Sprouts is actually quite good, save for an issue I’ll talk about in a bit. This game makes use of hand-drawn 2D black and white visuals that’s striking, with some interesting designs for the plants that are the focus of the game. This is joined by some light piano music and some soothing environmental sounds, making for a really relaxed atmosphere…

… and that atmosphere was absolutely destroyed for me when the game kept making an incessant grinding noise for some reason that would not stop no matter what I did. This is actually a part of a larger issue: Roots and Sprouts is a pretty buggy game. One time I tried to play and it skipped me past the opening language menu, forcing me to play the game in French (a setting that cannot be changed after the game begins). Another time, the game pushed me through some impassable scenery and trapped me within a bunch of invisible walls. Given that this game is estimated to last roughly an hour or so, it’s surprising how many times I felt forced to restart it.

Even when the game isn’t working properly, it left me feeling at a loss. You can harvest and carry one plant seed at a time, just one. And using this, you’re meant to move around and cross-breed multiple plants on the island. Of course, not all plants are harvestable and breedable, and rather than actually planting seeds you toss them at the ground, where they might bounce for a while before settling, possibly far away from the plant you’re trying to cross-breed with. It’s this sorta’ stuff that gives me the feeling that Roots and Sprouts doesn’t respect players’ time.

And given that pretty much all you’re doing here is planting, resting to pass time, resting again to pass more time, harvesting, moving the new seed elsewhere, and starting the process over again, Roots and Sprouts’ lack of respect for the player’s time makes this a pretty terrible, dull experience, and then you add in all the bugs, and I have a hard time seeing how anyone will enjoy this. Even for only $1, it’s difficult to recommend this game.

tl;dr – Roots and Sprouts is a game with elements similar to Action-RPG and Simulation games without really being either, and it has players harvesting, planting, and cross-breeding seeds. This game is extremely buggy and has zero respect for the player’s time, making for a dull, frustrating experience I cannot recommend.

Grade: D

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