izigame.me

I just finished 100%ing Garden Story for a second time since the game first came out. I do not enjoy this as a game, rather I engage with it as something to numb my attention. It's provides me the emotional sensation like that of accidentally slamming my elbow against a hard surface making my mind go fuzzy in a way that could be described as interesting and fun.
Garden Story is part of a trend I refer to as "chore games", or more amusingly "sanrio productivity software" which were sparked from the seed of Stawdew Valley and exploded in the wake of Animal Crossing. You're a little friend and you're in a place where things won't get done without your tedious repetitive efforts. It's just like real life except you don't have to stand up. You can talk to other cute little buddys to read their lukewarm agreeable thoughts about The Crushing Distress eating away at the world. Such are the classics of emotional game in displaying Theme and Allegory, it's not subtle or particularly deep but considering how lackluster video game writing can be it's pretty nice and mostly unintrusive.
I am magnetically drawn to any game that looks cute and lets me pick stuff up off the ground. I will play any game like this even if I actively dislike it. I played 300 hours of Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch in the span of 2 months and then I never touched it again because there's something wrong with me.
Garden Story is not a game I have spent 300 hours playing because it was not meticulously designed by a tightly focused team with millions of dollars. I am grateful for this. I maxed out every status and upgrade I could in about 25 hours so I am once again free. I liked looking at the bright colors and seeing all my little meters slowly tick up. I liked running around and tending to all the little plots and resources. I liked that the combat and puzzles are easy so i don't have to think too hard and risk waking the demons. i liked buying the final powerful upgrade that are completely useless because by the time i've expended the effort to get them the game is long over.
I do not like how certain rare resources are a huge pain to collect. I do not like having to resolve every puzzle dungeon a dozen times to even access certain resources or to get them the most efficiently. I do not like how almost all the places I have to backtrack to aren't on the screens that fast travel connects to. I do not like how spread out the farming plots are and how a game that lets you craft decorations only has tiny sequestered plots for them that barely fit any of the things you can build and even then you'd really want to use that space for the quest and storage objects. I don't like that I have to go to sleep and wake up hoping I get the more rewarding daily chores and then having to speedrun the day to try again.
Despite my many annoyances with this game I have somehow ended up completing all its chores and taking out all its metaphorical garbage instead of doing something actually fulfilling with that time. If that for you as it did for me sounds more achievable than doing something actually fulfilling you may also like playing this game.