Game Review - Lou's Lagoon

Game Review: Lou's Lagoon by Tiny Roar

Score: +1/-7

A relatively expensive lesson that a good demo is still not representative of the full game. And after all the bug reports I put in on their Discord, I felt like I should be the one being paid.

Main story and most side quests complete in under 30 hours and no impulse whatsoever to finish the final few side quests.

+1 Generally cozy mechanics and even the platforming is easy.

• I played the demo, got this vibe, and thought this was going to be a great game. That's the only reason I bought it at launch. The other issues showed up once I started seriously playing the full game.
• There's the bones of a decent cozy game but how those underlying mechanics ended up used was just one disappointment after another the further I played.
• This is really the only upside to this game but even it doesn't last very long because...

-1 Storage space is too limited making exploration irritating.

• Even though you can limit your crafting for quests, you still need money and that comes from gathering, crafting, and selling the result.
• Mid-game however you can use the Drone to collect resources, process them, and sell. Then you are just waiting on long crafting queues to get the grindy amount of currency needed to afford the upgrades.
• They are getting piles of feedback on this so it may change in a future update.

+0 Main story is just okay.

• Some interesting twists, however, those twists are often more like unexpected funky tasks than the more substantial missions you might find in a "serious" setting.
• Quite short, and ultimately wasn't strong enough to carry the game.
• If you beeline the main story, you'll probably find no reason to keep playing. Which I feel is contrary to the cozy game expectation of spending time in the game world and enjoying the game loop.
• Not worth the price at even the 10% launch discount despite being a mostly bug free game (which to be honest is quite rare these days, especially from smaller studios) that isn't going for the "Early Access" excuse.

-1 Side quests, NPCs, and the world are not engaging.

•  Either in the story they told, the task required, or the interaction with the NPC.
• I didn't feel any satisfaction doing them and I only did them because I needed the currency for tech tree unlocks.
• So once the main story was done, I really didn't feel any inclination to engage with the game world anymore or complete the final side quests, find treasure chests, etcetera.
• The setting doesn't take itself too seriously. You can either see this as creative and funky, or as a random mishmash with weak worldbuilding where they just came up with a bunch of concepts to make each set of islands feel different and decided to put them together. Personally, I found it increasingly difficult to feel invested in the world.
• -1 NPC dialog was probably meant to be funny but the humour just didn't land or fell flat, and that got tiresome fast.

-1 Building is unexpectedly clumsy.

• The system is functional if all you need to do is place a few crafting machines to complete quests, but don't expect to build yourself a really nice house or elaborate estate.
• There is snap to object but trying to align the first floor and second floors was unexpectedly really hard.

-1 Tech tree unlocks are too scarce.

• The amount of currency for tech tree unlocks felt really tight and there are a number of things you can unlock but seem to do nothing for any quest so you can end up "wasting" them and hampering your progress on other quests that require you to craft something that in turn requires unlocking materials on the tech tree.
• Some unlocks also felt pointless and a waste of currency, such as the ones for foodstuffs.
• There were only two side quests I can remember that used them and only around half that tech tree. If you unlocked the rest it might have been pointless and worse, limited your ability to unlock other things for other quests.

-1 You can't build a particularly large estate.

• This is generally one of the few things left after quests are done -- furnishing and fashion.
• The plot of land you're given is quite small, and the crafting machines take up a fair amount of that space. You could presumably build on the plot of land designated for Hefti's house, but that area is small too.
• And without any incentive to do this, the game really loses engagement. There is no longer any reason to craft anything except for quests. There is no reason to collect schematics for furnishings.

-1 Some deliberately grindy mechanics:

• Some simple furnishings are randomly found through treasure chests or flying into chests floating in the sky.
• I suppose they needed to make flying in your plane relevant somehow after implementing Fast Travel. And without Fast Travel between islands, it would be extremely tedious as your manufacturing stations are only at your home base.
• To hang up a painting on a wall requires some serious upgrading to your "Builder" tool. Why?
• When you upgrade your Fishing Rod, suddenly catching fish becomes more of a chore. It can feel like you can get everything else except what you need which was back at the basic fish you could get with your basic rod.
• For example, after I upgraded my Fishing Rod I still needed Bronze Scales from fish but I literally couldn't get any after over a dozen tries and in the end just used the Drone to auto collect for a small fee. I don't feel that should be why I (had to) use the Drone.

At launch it has some bugs, at least one of which is major:

• You cannot properly use ladders.
• Approaching a ladder doesn't work, and jumping onto one, (which you must do with climbable vines) just leaves you stuck in a climbing pose without being able to move.
• This blocks Main Story Quest progress.
• An awkward workaround can work: Jump at the ladder from a distance and hope you catch it high enough and you can climb up. I used this workaround on Bouldaria to complete quests required for the main story.
• Inventory can shrink when the game thinks you have more slots filled than are actually filled.

I recommend waiting for some major updates addressing these before picking up the game.