Beastro

The cooking and daytime part of the game is fun and relaxing (yes it gets repetitive quickly). But I really really dislike the nighttime card builder fighting part of the game. So much that it prevents me to play more than 3 hours. For me, it felt like I got 5 minutes of the cozy farming, cooking game I was promised, but then forced me to do a 20 minute round of "Slay the Spire" I didn't asked for. I wish the nighttime part of the game was some sort of autobattler or something. If I wanted to play a full grown deck builder, I'd go play STS. The deck battler part of the game has too much weight, in my opinion. And as a consequence of that, the daytime part lacks depth. The best part of the game is to prepare the meal for the caretaker, but you do that for a minute or two every 30 minutes or so. I want to love this game, but ultimately, it's not the game I had imagined.

A fresh take on a cozy game. Gather ingredients and take care of your small farm. Prepare meals for the townies, cook up a special dish for your hero and send them on an adventure. Based on the flavour profile of the dish, you build a card deck to use in a turn based combat. While the town area you get to explore, garden, fish and gather ingredients is rather small, you will soon begin to favour higher value ingredients, opting out of running the same collecting route every day. The game is well paced, hitting a sweet spot with its run time before it becomes boring. I thoroughly enjoyed the combat and the story even if it landed on the simpler side.

This game oozes lots of charm but ultimately is a slog to play through during the "daytime" cycle of gathering items/tending crops/cooking. It really is unfortunate because the actual "battling" is engaging, though the day cycle is just too boring and repetitive. Also the balance doesn't really make sense because I'm faced with bosses that are weak to an element that I do not have yet for some reason, and sounds like I'm forced to fail until a certain new character comes which has the exact element? This has happened basically twice so far and stopped me from playing. Hopefully one day they make some QOL improvements or speed up the day cycle to auto gather/cook and such because until then there's other better games to play.

Очаровательная игра! Когда я только начинала, было ощущение, что это будет очень однообразный симулятор готовки с парой мини игр и примитивной легкой пошаговой боевкой, но я была рада ошибаться. Когда я внезапно на втором же бою проиграла рядовому мобу, это было неожиданно, потому что у меня был расчет на то, что это будет максимально легкие сражения для галочки. Но тут оказалась вполне себе приятная стратегическая игра в несколько этапов - сначала ты снаряжаешь своего бойца карточками в виде ингредиентов, лавируя между бонусами к хп от определенных пожеланий персонажа и тем, чтобы просто закидать его мощными картами, но быть с тремя хп, раскладывая это все на небольшом ограниченном поле. А потом уже идешь в бой с этой колодой, где часто нужно стоять перед выбором - получить урон от врага или получить маленький урон от самого себя, но зато перемешав колоду и иметь шанс ударить врага. Нужно постоянно держать в голове, какие враги какой "вкусовой стихии" тебя ожидают и планировать свою колоду исходя из того. Бой тут, кстати, оформлен в виде 2д "театра" и это классная задумка, особенно приятно видеть у монстров и персонажей не один спрайт, а несколько. Игра не дает тебе сильно заскучать - боевые походы не слишком легкие, но и не слишком сложные, боссы заставляют попотеть, но пока большую часть я проходила с первой попытки. В первые часов 5-10 постоянно добавляются новые персонажи, новые ингредиенты, новые небольшие механики, новый косметический контент (хотя тут есть небольшой минус в виде того, что разные виды косметики тебе показываются все разом и у тебя нет азарта постоянно что-то получать новое и покупать - как купил сразу самое понравившееся, так и носишь его всю игру). Большую часть геймплея тут все таки занимают беготня туда-сюда, полив огорода, рыбалка, сбор всякой травы и жуков для готовки, собственно, сама готовка состоящая из мини игр, но игре в принципе удается балансировать с стратегически-боевыми элементами и не слишком надоедать однообразием, как минимум в первые часы игры. Сюжет тут довольно простой и не слишком оригинальный, но вполне фоново-приятный. Персонажи просто милейшие, от дизайнов я тут в восторге. Анимации тоже очень классные и выразительные (как же гг очаровательно гладит всяких зверушек, оаоаоа) - в целом визуал тут это одна из главных вещей, что меня изначально зацепила. Что 3д, что 2д элементы выглядят очень живенько и стильно, видно, что делали все с душой. Тут нет глубоких отношений с другими нпс, у городских болванчиков всего 1-2 фразы, но в принципе тут большего и не требуется. Из приятного - пока не встретила ни одного бага или вылета. Это даже редкость для подобных игрушек Главным минусом для меня стало отсутствие прыжка, добавьте его умоляю!! хдд Если коротко, то игра меня очень порадовала и превзошла мои изначальные ожидания простой легкой и однообразной игрушки на 3-4 часа. Она все еще не слишком глубокая, но вполне себе приносит удовольствие, как минимум первые пару глав. Как игра на пару вечерков - самое то.

A really adorable game with fun gameplay and more rich mechanics than one might expect, held back by its glaring lack of polish. I cant not recommend it as it was a really fun experience to go through, but i can also not ignore the fact that i barely ever managed to stay immersed in the game while animations were jittering and clipping, and UIs were overlapping gameplay for single instances.

Beastro is part cozy farming sim, part restaurant sim, and part deck builder rogue-like. It pulls everything together in a cohesive manner that's not bad but also not particularly interesting. It works but just feels bland. The farming aspect of the game is arguably the weakest part of the game. The town is pretty big but sparse, with nothing really of note. The villagers don't react to any story beats and everything is just far enough away from each other to make checking every corner for ingredient spawns to feel like a small chore. While gathering isn't strictly necessary, some ingredients like hammerbugs are only found this way, which implicitly encourages doing the daily lap around town twice daily, since different ingredients spawn in the morning and night. The farm itself is nice and contained within its own corner and is simple enough. Just harvest whatever's ready and water/feed everything in sight. Fishing is as basic as it gets: charge the reel, wait for a bite, and hit the quick time event to reel it in. Towards the end of the game, there is a way to automate watering the crops and gathering every drop in town, but in a strange design decision, this will likely occur within 2-3 days of the story ending. The ingredients are used in the restaurant, which contains some simple minigames to make recipes for customers to get money to buy whatever you need. The minigames are not hard but lose their charm very quickly. Most don't require much thought and some feel like they're missing a core aspect. The chopping minigame feels like it should be following around to a rhythm of some sort, but it doesn't. The pounding minigame is just mashing the button while moving towards anything on the board. After three such minigames, there's a serving minigame where you have to get the dishes to the correct customer within a time limit for the most tips. This one in particular feels like you have to try to get below the green serve time since the restaurant is so small and even the shortest lifespan dishes are very generous. After serving the customers, the main point of the game shows up: feeding the caretaker by balancing ingredient choice on a grid to both match the caretaker's preferences while also giving them cards they need for combat. Early game, the decisions feel like they matter, but later on, the weight of choices is lifted when the only thing that matters is getting at least one card of every flavor with decent attack value. That's really all you need since the combat is focused on not matching the monster's flavor, but rather neutralizing it. The combat mostly plays itself as the gameplay loop is to keep spending your health to redraw your hand until you get the correct flavors, which will make themselves known by jumping in your hand. If you don't have the correct flavors in hand, you keep going until you either get the card you need or run out of health. This makes it pretty easy to solve the combat phase if you just want to beat the story. The story itself exists and has a beginning, middle, and end. It feels like a few details were left out, but is overall fine, if a bit predictable. Characters are pretty one note, but that fits given the separation of flavors in the world. Due to the nature of progression being tied to how fast you go through the map in combat, the story can either fly by if you manage to get everything on the first two or three goes, or basically not exist if you either actively decide not to or just get an unlucky streak and fail to advance. The visuals are cute and charming, with everyone of note immediately being recognizable. The music fits the whimsical theme and is otherwise unoffensive. Overall, not a bad game but doesn't bring anything new. Worth checking out when it's on sale to spend over a few afternoons.

I bought this game instantly, because I'm a furry who loves cozy games, and have been wanting a furry cozy game that I actually can play without struggling too much and relax with, and THIS game delivers that for me! I love it so much! From the characters, to the art style, to the gameplay! Gosh I LOVE the turn based battle gameplay so much! The fact that it's based on food tastes etc in a game about being a chef is litterally purrfect!^W^

I like the game but I'd really like to see more polish. The constant jump cuts between characters during dialogue and the animations restarting for every dialogue box, along with the sudden transitions and cutscenes are really disorienting at times, I hate it. Everything just feels so jittery and... disconnected. With just a few touch ups this would easily be an 8/10 game, but as it stands I can't bring myself to play it for long

[h3] Things I like: [/h3] - There is a lot of variety in the gameplay due to the employment of multiple archetypes; ranging from resource gathering & restaurant management, to Mario-Party-style minigames & a full-on RPG combat system. - The combat system & flavor system are amazing. The hexagonal relationship among flavors has been well thought-out and is a creative way to blend the story with the core gameplay. The card-based combat loosely reminds me of Magic: The Gathering, but still feels unique and provides an addicting challenge. - The tutorials go into complete detail to explain how the game works, leaving little room for ambiguity whilst also not sounding too bloated. That's how tutorials should be! - Just as with the combat system, the story is unique and its worldbuilding has been well thought out. I like the idea of a world where denizens are based around flavors and the magic system is likewise. - The characters are cute, funny, and full of personality. Even the livestock NPCs (e.g., delishkens, fenpires) make the game feel alive. - The art style is great. Clearly some furries were in charge of this--only [b]they[/b] know how to make anthropomorphic creatures look this good. ;3 The way color is used is also good. - The music is great and fits the environment & atmosphere. The same can be said of the sound engineering, which fit the actions & creatures they're assigned to. - The game's price is appropriate. - The dev team has been quick to fix bugs. Many of said bugs have been minor, which is a rare sight to see from an indie studio. [h3] Things I don't like: [/h3] - The game is too short. [b][u]I'd happily pay for a story expansion![/u][/b] - There are too few regions to explore and the maps do not have enough variety/randomness to them. Earlier maps, like the Marshlands, eventually feel too easy & predictable to justify returning to. Maybe consider implementing a procedural generation system? - There are too few venture caretakers to choose from; [spoiler]only three to be exact: Oyshi (Umami), Azur (Sweet), and Kalan (Bitter). There was a missed opportunity to have six caretakers from each of the six flavor realms, but Colsi (Sour) and Sunna (Salty) do not get to be venture caretakers, and Pokosh (Spicy) straight-up becomes an antagonist. [b][i]Frankly, it looks a lot like the devs were (or are) planning to have Sunna, Colsi, and Pokosh be venture caretakers, but had their roles demoted due to time constraints. I hope they reconsider and give them fighting roles for the player to control in an expanded story. [/i][/b][/spoiler] - Because of the above bullet point, some characters don't get as much character development as they deserve. [spoiler]Sunna, for example, has such an uninteresting personality and so little involvement both story-wise & gameplay-wise that I forgot his name when writing this review, and struggled to look it up because apparently other players don't remember his name either--I don't even remember his sex, so I'm assuming male. Colsi feels a little bit more involved because his blunt and "I'm gonna go take a nap" personality is more memorable & unexpectedly hilarious.[/spoiler] - Personally, I do not find flavor crystals useful because adding flavor without adding a card naturally reduces the amount of cards one has access to. I can see how some strategies might rely on a small hand, but for me, more cards = more options. - At the time of writing, the most major bug I've experienced is an ongoing visual bug where characters instantly switch to their next animation with no transition, sometimes causing jiggle/spring bones to bounce all over the place and clip with other parts--a phenomenon most often observed with Kalan's hat and Azur's skirt. It makes animations feel jerky & unfinished. - The game uses Unreal Engine. We need more devs courageous enough to make their own engines instead of relying on other people's broken ♥♥♥♥. - There is a missed opportunity to have custom colors for cosmetic items. - There is a GIANT missed opportunity for additional voice acting. Only the intro features voice acting whereas the rest of the game is purely written dialogue. Why not do what Gears for Breakfast did with [b]A Hat & Time[/b]: have actors voice all of the written dialogue? That would be awesome! Heck, the guy voicing Panko in the Beastro trailers would be a great fit to bring back for the whole game! - There is no multiplayer. I can imagine ways a peer-to-peer PVP mode could be made. [h3]Overall:[/h3] This game deserves praise for its innovative gameplay, original story, and lack of major bugs. There's definitely room to expand the story & gameplay, and I hope the devs capitalize on it with future updates.