April Grove Review – Leaf This One Alone

April Grove caught my interest the moment I first saw it, for one key reason: its visual style. With a colourful pixel art aesthetic that evokes the Game Boy Color era, it certainly struck something within me, given my penchant for retro handheld gaming. Then, when I learned it was from developer Colorgrave as well, I figured I would be in great hands, given I had previously played and enjoyed an earlier release of theirs, Curse Crackers. The quality of their titles is known to be pretty high overall, so I began my playthrough of April Grove with equally high expectations.

By the end of my playthrough, though, I was left completely perplexed. April Grove might be one of the most disappointing and underwhelming gaming experiences I’ve had in a while, and it really is a shame because I was rooting for it every step of the way. Every hour, I was expecting it to give me something just a little more, anything. I gave it every opportunity to do so, but after finally reaching the finish line, April Grove just left me wanting.

In April Grove, you step into the shoes of a forester, sent to the titular grove to tame the trees and work under the goddess known as April. That’s basically it for the set-up and the story, but given that April Grove is supposed to be a more laid-back, relaxing life sim, it didn’t matter too much to me that that narrative was a little light. The game more than makes up for it with its visual splendor, as mentioned previously, and wonderful character designs. Each of the grove’s inhabitants is full of so much character from a visual standpoint. Environments are lush, detailed, and really do an excellent job of evoking the essence of the GBC era.

I also have high praise for the soundtrack; although it strays significantly from the retro style set by its visuals, the songs are nonetheless serene and relaxing. The songs are a perfect fit for a game designed to be a relaxing means to unwind. Music changes with the weather too, and given that you can change the weather at will (for a small in-game fee) you can choose the sort of vibes you want for your chill-out session. On just these merits alone, April Grove is a treat, but I wish I could say the same for the rest of it.

There are many games out there like April Grove, life sims, where the whole game is centered around doing mundane activities as a form of relaxation, such as fishing, gardening, and farming. If they were to focus on one of these activities, you would expect them to go into a bit more depth and expand the scope, exploring the many different layers and avenues of said activity. April Grove is a game all about chopping down trees to gain experience and make money. That is it. I wish I could say there was more to it, but at least 95% of my ten-hour playthrough consisted of just that. It probably only took about two hours to stop being relaxing; instead, I just found myself completely and utterly bored.

I understand that this game is intended to be played as a background activity, something to be enjoyed while doing other things; the game’s Steam page even states this. But to me that really doesn’t excuse the gameplay loop from being exceptionally uninteresting and dull; you move up to a tree, start chopping, wait for the tree to drop however many logs it wants to give you, you pick up your logs, repeat until your exceptionally small inventory space is filled up. You then run over to the deposit box and earn money, and then you go back to do it all again. I really wouldn’t have an issue with the game at all if this were just one activity amongst several others, but that really is all you do.

Once you gain enough experience and have shipped enough logs to please April, you gain access to another part of the forest, where you can start the process again. Exploration feels super unrewarding, though; in the few chests that are scattered around, you only ever find money to spend, and there are a lot of caves that just lead to complete dead ends. The entire forest feels shockingly small, and despite how pleasant the graphics are, there just isn’t a whole lot of variety. Within ten hours, you’ll have likely seen it all and burned a well-worn trail through it several times over.

Eventually, you’ll take breaks to spend money on temporary food buffs or to buy equipment from the rather barebones store, but there’s surprisingly little to do outside of that. What astounds me is that there are characters who serve no gameplay purpose whatsoever. They have a few lines they’ll repeat if you talk to them, but they otherwise don’t do anything to add to the gameplay. I was expecting them to maybe have quests associated with them, but you barely have any reason to go out of your way to actually talk to them. It’s truly a shame since, again, the characters all have wonderful designs. April Grove’s own barebones gameplay betrays its wonderfully crafted visual style, and that is more than a little frustrating.

April Grove doesn’t feel finished; it feels like there should be more game here, but given I made it all the way up to level 99, moving along the path of progression just as the game wanted me to, this is clearly just all there is. No extra wrinkles to the gameplay loop, no additional collectibles, and a minimal amount of side quests. Games like April Grove aren’t even really supposed to end, and in a way, it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t give you enough reason to continue to care about it after ten hours. It is completely barren in terms of compelling content, and given how much passion has clearly been put into its visuals and music, it really is tragic.