Review: Plantera (Steam)

In Plantera you build your own garden and watch it grow with new plants, bushes, trees and animals. As you play and expand your garden you will attract Helpers, round blue creatures that will help you with your harvesting tasks.

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Pros:

  • Nice pixel graphics.
  • Steam Achievements.
  • Steam trading cards.
  • Clicker game play. In other words the game can actually play itself.
  • Bonus knight randomly appears. He will knock away any intruders and clicking on him gives you cash per click.
  • Four animals to place in your farm. They can drop items worth more gold than others. Pig for example can dig up one of a handful of items all varying in gold amount.
  • Five tree types to unlock and plant. Fruit will drop once ripe, You can of course click on them before that.
  • Five bush types to unlock and plant.
  • Five plants to unlock and plant.
  • Scarecrow and dog can be purchased and they will ward off intruders.
  • Several intruders will attempt to steal your fruit! From moles,Ladybugs to wolves and foxes.
  • Multiplier: You can purchase upgrades to increase the amount of gold you get per click on all items in your garden.
  • Alarm clock: This sets how long your helpers will work after you turn the game off. You increase it by the hour.
  • Small download size: 16mb.
  • Stupidly easy to get into too.
  • Addictive.
  • Earn EXP and level up to unlock new items and improve current unlocks.
  • Juts uses a mouse and left click to click and right click to move around your level.
  • Unlock extensions to your level. You have three arrows you can click that sends you to the far left, far right or centre.

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Cons:

  • Feels good at the start but it soon feels like you have seen and done everything, Basically I’m saying it lacks any real depth.
  • The music is not good, It will drive you to the mute button so fast.
  • Feels a bit like the helpers don’t always do “help” they seem to spend more time just walking backwards and forwards.

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The Numbers
  • 7/10
    Graphics - 7/10
  • 3/10
    Sound - 3/10
  • 8/10
    Accessbility - 8/10
  • 5/10
    Length - 5/10
  • 7/10
    Fun Factor - 7/10
6/10

Summary

Plantera is a fun clicker game, It lays out a lavish cocktail of trees, Shrubs and plants but it fizzles out just as quick as it started. You unlock stuff really quickly but it has such a tiny amount of unlocks that soon it becomes just a chore to upgrade the unlocks and get the much needed helpers. I mean I enjoyed my time with it and ploughed a fair few hours in as it is a really chilled relaxing game that is an excellent time waster. But I just tired of getting unnoticeable level ups and the slow trickle of gold earned. Shame as it shows great promise from other clickers especially as you are not just clicking in one place and it has variation to a degree.In short its good for a short while but soon just turns into another mindless clicker with little reward.

Jim Smale

Gaming since the Atari 2600, I enjoy the weirdness in games counting Densha De Go and RC De Go as my favourite titles of all time. I prefer gaming of old where buying games from a shop was a thing, Being social in person was a thing. Join me as I attempt to adapt to this new digital age!