Also on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch
Publisher: SOEDESCO
Developer: Xelo Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E
I feel like I’ve played Petit Island many times before. It’s a cozy game about an anthropomorphic animal wandering around an island, carrying out various tasks and learning a deeper truth about herself along the way. From that broad description, just off the top of my head, you could be talking about Lil Gator Game, Haven Park, and A Short Hike. Make it a person who’s the game’s star, rather than an animal. and you could be talking about Pine Hearts. I’m not saying that concept has been done to death, but…well, come to think of it, I guess I am saying that.
This wouldn’t be an issue if Petit Island did something new or interesting with the premise. I wouldn’t say any of the games named above do anything groundbreaking, but they still find a way – to varying degrees – of keeping things interesting. Petit Island largely doesn’t: it gives you a task, shows you where to go on the map, and then puts a giant exclamation mark over your objective whenever you get there, just to be sure you can’t miss it.
On top of that, Petit Island’s tasks are rarely interesting. It’s lots of gathering items, taking photos, and talking to specific people. What’s more, the game holds your hand every step of the way in each task, breaking them down to their component parts just to be sure that you don’t miss anything. For a game that’s ostensibly an open-world, it all feels very linear and lacking in excitement.
Having said all that, I don’t want to give the impression that I hated Petit Island. It may feel unoriginal, but there’s no denying that it’s cute and cozy. Where a lot of so-called “wholesome” games feel kind of manic in the way they seem to insist everything is fine and cute at all times, Petit Island has a certain gentleness to it that goes a long way. I mean, the game is about a young cat exploring the village where her grandfather grew up, finding his old friends and favourite places so that she can bring him back some happy memories as he nears the end of his life; if that doesn’t genuinely tug at your heartstrings at least a little, you’re kind of a monster.
But just being cute isn’t enough to make a game worthwhile, unfortunately. Petit Island borrows a lot of well-established ideas without doing enough to make any of them feel like its own, and as a result, you’ll come away from the game wishing you could play some of those other games instead.
SOEDESCO provided us with a Petit Island PC code for review purposes.
