When I first looked at Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition, I thought to myself, the game looks like a mixture of a Super Mario Galaxy’s planet and a farming sim game. I was hesitant at first because of the small circular planet, but eventually calmed to the idea. Let’s have a deeper look at the game in this review!
Story
Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition isn’t a game that puts story as its priority. You play as Arco, a young boy who lives alone on a tiny planet. Before you know it, you may forget a story even exists while watching the progress Arco has made with building up his little planet. There will be a regular exchange of dialogue between characters; however, that’s as deep as it gets until much later in the game.
Gameplay
Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition is a farming adventure game where you play as a young boy to develop your island. To do this, you must craft tools, upgrade them, and complete various chores. You’re going to have to experiment with the controls to learn the basics; otherwise, you may waste some time such as letting visitors’ ships pass by without landing.
Planet Life
The majority of the gameplay takes place on your planet. You’ll have to grow crops, plant trees, build structures, gather resources, and care for your farm animals. All of this must be done throughout the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The world changes with each season and it determines which crops can thrive. There is a pleasant amount of content in this area to explore.
While most of your extra time may go towards banging on rocks to get their materials, there are some nifty surprises in the mix. I loved how the game would zoom me out so that I could rotate the small planet to determine where falling meteors landed. Navigating these flaming rocks to plain land rewards you with materials while hitting your crops or trees would destroy them.
Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition is going to be an extremely repetitive ride and it can easily become boring if you’re not willing to shoulder it being stretched out. It’s going to take a while for the right character to visit you. Additionally, not all characters may bring new quests upon arrival. Still, I did enjoy my time with the game because I was patient and accepting of the various daily chores.
Quests
Quests in this game are the key to progression. The characters will occasionally give you quests and you must complete them to unlock more crafting recipes and advance further in the game. Some of the quests you may have to do are defeating monsters, acquiring specific ingredients, or even crafting items. There are going to be a lot of them to complete and the exchange of dialogue between the characters for the associating quests is usually a delight to read.
Fishing
Like in most farming sim games, you can fish in Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition. Once you’ve crafted a fishing rod, you can try to catch fish in the pond on your planet. What I like about fishing in this game is that it isn’t simply throwing your line into the water and automatically catching a fish; there’s a little more to it. You’ll have to perfect your timing and mash one of the controller buttons within the timeframe to reel a big one in.
Combat
Combat in Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition is basic and doesn’t get too difficult. Invading enemies may spawn at random times and you must hunt them down or risk losses. Subduing enemies aren’t too satisfying. It’s basically moving forward and swinging your tool. Sometimes you may miss and the enemy may get an attack in, but that’s pretty much what to expect from this game.
The most challenging part only comes later in the game but it wouldn’t be from facing the enemies alone. It’ll be from your degrading HP with the lack of a campfire. Confronting too many enemies will be the death of you if you dare to ignore your limit. On the bright side, it’s nice to see your partner, Mûn, joining the battle during this part of the game and fighting alongside you.
Items
Forageable items are spawned each day on the planet and the game makes it convenient to pick them up. Instead of pressing a button each time, you simply approach the item and Arco will pick it up. Additionally, I was impressed after discovering the mechanics behind gathering large quantities of wood from trees.
Selling and crafting items in high quantities is also convenient. You’re able to craft items in bulk as long as you have the required number of materials. While selling items does not share that same level of convenience, it’s far from being the opposite. It’ll only take a little extra time by having to keep a button held down.
Structure Placement
There are a decent number of structures you can build and place on your planet. The majority of them will serve a purpose and you will unlock new ones as you progress further in the game. The game isn’t going to hold your hand and place structures in the perfect positions or alignments for you. You’re going to have to be careful and make sure you place them right.
What I found disheartening is not being able to move existing structures to new locations. You’re going to have to destroy them by swapping to your axe and then rebuild from half of the resources you salvage. The sacrifice of half of the structure’s materials at this point will seem minuscule; however, it can add up if many mistakes or regrettable decisions are made.
Bugs
Thankfully, there are no game-breaking bugs in Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition. There are still bugs that cause inconveniences, though. The worst was when a distinctive character’s ship arrived; it felt like the game was stuck in an endless loop while monsters kept robbing me of my goods. Another is when going to sleep and having the workshop menu prompt be the first thing that I saw; sure, it said to press the B button to close it, but I only read that after several wasted seconds of mashing A.
Graphics and Soundtrack
Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition is an indie title and while I try to be lenient on the graphics, I couldn’t get over the appearance of the main planet during winter; it’s pretty horrible. The game does improve during its other seasons. Each season is going to make the world look different. There haven’t been any framerate drops during my playthrough of the game and I loved how smooth ships made their landing.
The game’s soundtrack is pretty good, even though music is not always played throughout the game. It did its job at keeping me relaxed while I did my daily chores. It also wasn’t afraid to switch to a more upbeat tune when I had to draw my tools and duke it out with invading enemies.
Conclusion
If you’re not okay with repetitive chores and delaying progression in games, Deiland: Pocket Planet probably isn’t for you. The game has some interesting ideas and has even managed to successfully change my negative mindset about its Super Mario Galaxy-like planet. You will need the patience to play this one for it to be an entertaining experience in the longrun.
Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition gets a 6/10.
