Review of Paleo Pines Switch: thunderous cheers
Our Verdict
Paleo Pines is a delightful, dino-filled romp through the farming sim genre that skillfully blends real paleontology with cutesy, cottagecore aesthetics and motifs. It’s a little wobbly on the Switch but it’s still full of wholesomeness and charm.
I've been very eager to play Paleo Pines ever since I learned about it. Cosy agricultural simulators are my favourite kind of game, although some of them may grow repetitive. It's a great approach to change things up, and in my view, the addition of extinct reptiles works very well.
My expectations for this game were already high after playing the trial, but I was curious to see how the Switch version fared in terms of performance to the PC version. Even while there are undoubtedly certain issues and aspects of the quality of life that lower my enjoyment, I am really enjoying my time in Veridian Valley.
To put it briefly, Paleo Pines is a 3D agricultural life simulation that takes place in a world where dinosaurs are still around. Living in Veridian Valley, the verdant heartland of the Paleo Pines world, you and your closest dinosaur friend, Lucky the Parasaurolophus, take up residence in a dilapidated ranch. Your goals are to cultivate your own food, study and make friends with a variety of dinosaur species, and solve the world's grandest mysteries—among them, the whereabouts of all the other Parasaurs.
To begin with, both the idea and the character design are quite cute. I like competent character creators, particularly those that don't force me to choose between binary gender possibilities. Paleo Pines adheres to a cutesy, cottagecore aesthetic yet provides a broad variety of skin tones, hairstyles, and wardrobe options. There are also randomly produced townspeople who employ the same resources as the character builder among the very diversified core cast of NPCs.
It's evident that the dinosaurs in this planet also required a great deal of planning and effort. The cooperation between the Paleo Pines crew and the palaeontologist is evident since they have discussed working together in the past. The dinosaurs' looks, food details, and even scientific classifications adhere to current scientific understanding of these extinct companions while maintaining a cuddly aesthetic. Paleo Pines is considerably more charming when this degree of accuracy is combined with artistic licence used to create vibrantly coloured uncommon dinosaurs and a sea lion-like Gallimimus call, which is very appealing to my husband and I who are dinosaur aficionados.
Like previous games in the genre, the farming portion of the game involves tilling the earth, planting seeds, watering your crops, and selling your harvests. Once again, the dinos themselves provide the traditional agricultural gameplay a distinctive touch. Once they have enough faith in you, you may rely on the unique talents of each of the dinosaurs you house and become friends with on your ranch. The first dinosaur to join your squad with Lucky is the silly Gallimimus that I've previously described; they are experts at watering crops. It takes a lot of energy to manually water every plant, so it's easy and cute to be able to jump upon your dinosaur's back and have them spray a whole field with a single bite!
Since I quickly get overwhelmed when a game asks me to accomplish too much at once, I've personally had trouble with games like Stardew Valley in the past. However, a total absence of guidance might also make me lose interest in a game. Paleo Pines, in my opinion, achieves a good mix between the two by offering a tonne of activities such as extra errands, side missions, crafting, exploring, and taming new pals for your ranch, while also gradually introducing new features and regions via the main plot and season system. Even while some of these—especially the missing item quests—can be a bit annoying, there's often plenty to keep you occupied without putting you under real-world stress in what is supposed to be a soothing, escape-oriented game.
Even while I'm having fun with Paleo Pines, it's definitely not flawless. As I previously said, there are a few performance problems with the Switch version, such as stuttering and visual glitches, which I've largely seen while arranging furniture or fences around my ranch. Though you may find them more bothersome than I do, I find them to be rather simple to ignore. The map is my other major worry. The area maps in Paleo Pines are not so much useful as they are beautiful, in contrast to typical gaming maps. The sign that indicates where you are is difficult to see, there are no labels, and you cannot put marks there. A few occasions, I've found myself getting lost and having to use physical force to find my way back to a known region since the map has proven to be of little use.
You may even view the current locations of certain NPCs on the map, albeit this feature is not without problems. While on your ranch, none of the NPC symbols appear when you examine your map. The major retail centre, Pebble Plaza, is the same; the map there just shows you whose characters are in the plaza with you, leaving the remainder of the space unfilled. This makes it much more difficult than necessary to locate characters for fetch missions. Again, I can overlook this considering how much fun I'm having overall, but it's certainly something to think about.
In general, I believe Paleo Pines is geared for a very particular demographic of cosy gaming fans who love dinosaurs, and as someone who belongs to that group, I think it works really well. Although in a rather awkward fashion, I still think that this game is bringing some new life to the agricultural sim genre. This game is really worth checking out for the price, and who knows—you could end up loving it just as much as I have.
Check out our list of the topdinosaur games for Switch and mobile if you're in the mood for some more dinosaur adventures. We also have a tonne of amazing gardening experiences waiting for you in our guide to the best farm games.