I had a lot to say about this game from the jank in which it controls movement to how absolutely infuriating it is to actually progress (NPCs will just go MIA for ingame months), but it seems reviews do indeed have a character limit and I went well beyond it. I'll have to shorten this a lot.

Tl;dr: Do not buy this game. This is like breeding for a shiny in pokemon but somehow even duller and that's almost the only thing to do. You will be following the same route and checking the same spawns for a dino if you're the color collection type. If you're not, your gameplay will be agonizingly boring as there is so little else to actually do. There are so many issues and annoyances I would never, ever recommend this unless they're all fixed (which I doubt given what I've seen).

Mod support would very likely save this game, but the devs are against it which is another reason I will never recommend this game.....t's doing the same thing again and again with timegating and insane jank to controls and how stuff works.

Also DLC just got announced as I was considering posting this or not so that's...not a good look given the game's announcement history is pretty much "buy my merch!!!"



Gosh I love and hate this game. I have many more hours on a friend's account and did end up getting it for myself on sale, but it was only because I got tired of having to borrow it if I want to play. It was very begrudgingly done.

I'll start with the positives:

-Sound design is absolutely great minus volumes on some things and maybe a few sounds not fitting. Many share sounds, as expected, but it's still cute. Some environmental noises can be too loud, like rain on a tarp, but I do like the fact such sounds exist there to begin with. Lovely touch. Also the "yippee!" makes me laugh each time I hear it.

-Dinosaur designs are ADORABLE. There are some personal gripes I have about some designs, but those are nitpicks I personally dislike and won't go into. I adore most designs and I found myself especially fond of the tyrannosaurus, the dimetrodon, and carnotaurus. I loooove those guys so much. I wish ceratosaurus had more patterns because his current one isn't great, but if he had a better one he'd be in my top favorites for sure.

-The fact dinos can roam from their enclosures is great! I wish they did this more, actually. It's fun seeing them wander around the ranch and adds a lot of charm.

-You can pet and feed dinos and they will play cute animations when you do so. They're simple, but very charming.

-Dinos have special abilities to help with stuff, though this can be a mixed bag as some unlock...way too late.

-The environment design is charming for the most part. My favorite biome also feels smaller than the rest which is a bummer, but man...the forest area is LOVELY. I adore being in there and wish I could put my ranch in that area instead. Absolutely charming.


Now for the cons which can be incredibly large in many cases and are why I can't recommend this game despite enjoying it (Ark syndrome™):

--This one is a big one: the amount of dinos you can have at any one time is harshly limited. This is a game that pushes you to collect colors and different dinos but it won't let you collect them...it's...horrible. The excuse given is that no more than 45 can be in one area or the game starts to lag, but as SO MANY have pointed out, you could just add another ranch OR another area to the current ranch that goes through a load screen. Most every area is a loading screen anyway...why not....it's terrible.

-It's clunky. Like horribly janky. Like I despise playing this even as fun as it is. It just feels wrong with how many steps you have to do to do certain things and sometimes if the character doesn't line up JUST RIGHT you end up not getting the response you want. Trying to flute toward one dino and another BEHIND THAT ONE somehow gets summoned instead happens a lot too. Trying to pick up something and your character decides to just not turn around/go to far/etc. They let you pick up stuff from mounts (selectively) recently, but it is way too limited. Dismounting and remounting to access/pick up certain stuff is tedious along with the notebook not registering stuff. I could go on.

-In that same line, the fact you either have to carry a ton of items around or risk being unprepared when you see a fancy dino SUCKS when the inventory is so small.

-The fact some NPCs can just vanish when you need them or aren't where they should be so you CAN'T BUY STUFF FOR ENCLOSURES AND DINOS. One character in particular that anyone who has played this game has wanted to throttle with their bare hands is especially guilty of this. I missed a window to make ALL SMALL DINOS have ANY use at all because I didn't realize I needed to talk to him more or something so my tiny dinos were just useless for ages. Also the quests involving him really take up space. Why have him asking for quests when he won't show up for like another ingame month?

Need to buy something to make a pen? Too bad! The owner of that stall is out somewhere you can't get to.

Need to order rope for a quest that prevents you from seeing dinos? Nope! She's IN THE AREA YOU ARE TRYING TO UNLOCK like 90% of the time. Finding her is a nightmare and you better pray you have everything you need when she's there. Also after that, you get to wait more ingame days for your order. Nice. Animal Crossing felt less forced than this. People have said this feels like padding time to prevent refunds and frankly I agree with that. It takes FOREVER to get to finally taming dinos and if you skip the tutorial then good luck figuring out the wonky systems they have. Most still aren't explained (like tender dinos which to this day have discussion threads about them).

-THE QUESTS. They are so bad. Timegating is strong here too and everything is just fetch quests. I could go on but character limit.

-Some small animations are cute (like the petting/feeding), but most are lazy at best. Movement looks incredibly lackluster most the time.

-Some dinos have a few patterns while some (poor ceratosaurus) have just one and it's not that great...which leads me to...

-There is no mod support. For a singleplayer game. None. People have been asking for it but from what I can tell and have seen, the devs are very much "their way or the highway" types and you can see it in how they interact with the community. I'll never forget on twitter seeing someone make a mod for Jurassic World that put Lucky in it and the devs acted disgusted by it until adding 7 HOURS LATER (after people called out how trashy such behavior is) that they're actually happy about it. Uh huh...seeing your community pour their heart and soul into something then stomping on it is not great behavior. I hear nothing but unpleasant things regarding the devs and suspect mod support will remain nonextistant which is a shame as it could really liven things up. I really didn't want to buy the game because of this especially...

-On a similar note, unlike the dinos, the human designs are atrocious. Personality wise and design wise, they're painful to look at and interact with. The closest one I come to liking is the guy who's gone most the time and caused me the most headache. Hearing distant "yippee!" is great, but it won't save these little gremlins for me.

-The friggen social needs of the dino pens. Allosaurus, a renowned pack hunter, is a SOLITARY DINO....??? WHAT. This makes creating nice enclosures such a hassle because now I'm limited on dreamstones AND space because of space needs and dinos not wanting to have buddies. This should be togglable in some form.

In the end, while I know this is a lot, it's because I wanted to love this game, I really did, and a part of me still does...but it's so marred by horrible choices, devs, gameplay, and design all throughout. I could never recommend this unless so many things get added and changed. Sadly, with what I've seen, I don't see that happening.

I really wanted to like this game more than I do, but I feel like it infuriates me more than it gives me enjoyment.

Pros
- the dinos really are cute
- farming is always fun

Cons
- it gives "baby's first unity project", if you know you know
- everything is so far away with no quick travel (that I have seen or unlocked at least) this makes the game a chore when every day you're basically exploring the whole map again and again in search of resources and to check on any new dinosaurs
- no minimap, no visible clock. you're going around blind and have no idea what time of the day it is. you have a bigger map but it's very inconvenient. it doesn't help that the maps, especially the forest just look the same in every corner
- everything is expensive. the dinosaurs eat SO much. I'm scrambling to collect every flower on the map every day just to keep these damn things fed, and on top of that you have to BUY things like fences and gates for them.
- there is NO crafting system. the only things you "craft" are the things you can trade for from the builder dude and he wants a pile of resources and on top of that even more money.
- even the cooking system eats so much vegetables that it's easier to just ignore that whole thing and pretend there is no cooking. just sell the vegetables.

So much fun- Its so hard to not tame and bring home every dino you see cause they're all so damn cute T^T Took me awhile to figure out the different uses of each dino and which ones I need to start out with, I really love how many little tasks and quests you can do. I can't wait to get even further into the game. Only complaints is that the backpack inv is wayy too small for how much you need for just basic exploring and taming of dinos, that alone takes up at leAst a row, if not 2 (if you carry every poppin flavor) When looking online, I saw you can get 1 inv upgrade from buying and becoming closer to Arani (I haven't done that yet, but its still only one little upgrade in the entire game?) I would also love if there was an option to have the map up in a corner as you move, cause I can't memorize all the areas- the map is HUGE which is great but oh my gawd I get lost so often. Otherwise the game is great! Takes time and patience but it is a really relaxing/cozy game <3