- 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 30/Jul 03:01

Gaucho and the Grassland – Review

Farming sims are a dime a dozen these days, and if you’re going to stand a chance against the heavy hitters like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, you need a unique hook. We’ve seen farming sims themed around dinosaurs and cowboys, and even one with a sci-fi story. Today, we’re looking at a title that tackles yet another angle. Gaucho and the Grassland offers South American farming sim action with a mythical twist. Eager to see what this take could bring to the genre, we wasted no time grabbing the bull by the horns and paid a visit to the grassland. Story Players step into the well-worn work boots of a gaucho (or gaucha), the South American equivalent of a cowboy. Things start out familiar enough for anyone who has played a major farming sim in recent years, as our story begins with our protagonist inheriting their recently deceased papi’s old farm. As any farming sim veteran would expect, the next thing to do is to turn the derelict farm into an agricultural powerhouse. Things take a turn, however, when your dead patriarch turns up as a ghost. As it turns out, he wasn’t just a humble farmer but was also tasked with keeping an eye on the different regions of the grasslands. Each of these regions normally falls under the protection of a mythical deity, but these have mysteriously vanished. Their disappearance has caused environmental imbalance, so now it’s up to our gaucho to find the deities and restore peace to the grassland. You can’t farm in a chaotic wasteland after all. Graphics The South American setting of Gaucho and the Grassland provides a rich source of folklore and cultural themes to draw from when it comes to the game’s aesthetics. Character outfits are based on real-life gaucho attire and reflect Latin American traditions in a stylized but respectful manner. Mythical elements like the serpent-like Boitatá are visually distinct and evocative of Brazilian folklore. The game’s overall feel is that of a storybook, with a world made up of soft, rounded shapes and cute characters. Each of the game’s different areas starts off misty, grey, and somber, reflecting its troubled state. As you progress, the mist clears, colors become brighter and more vibrant, and the world transforms into a lush, thriving environment, mirroring the balance returning to the land. Unfortunately, visual performance doesn’t always keep up with the game’s aesthetics. Stutter and frame drops are fairly common, especially during fast movement. We also encountered instances of misaligned objects, like terrain pieces that were floating or animals that got stuck in parts of the environment. Hopefully, these issues will be patched out down the line. Sound Like with its visuals, Gaucho and the Grassland taps into South American heritage for its audio. The soundtrack incorporates traditional music motifs and regional instruments to evoke the atmosphere of the Pampas. A particularly nice touch is that the music reflects the current state of the grassland region that you are in. While the region is covered in mist, the music is low-key and eerie, but as the state of the environment changes thanks to your efforts, the music turns bright and cheerful. Ambience is a big contributor to immersion, with birds chirping, wind rustling through trees, and the sounds of distant animals all contributing to a tranquil rural atmosphere. Gaucho and the Grassland doesn’t feature full voice acting. Audible dialogue is limited to short blurbs like grunts and emotional exclamations. This ties into the game’s storybook-like aesthetic, however, and doesn’t detract from the overall soundscape. Gameplay Although Gaucho and the Grassland is recognizable as a farming sim at its core, it isn’t afraid to stray away from the conventions of the genre. The core gameplay loop isn’t centered around making a profit and reinvesting it in your budding farm. Instead, your main goal is to restore harmony to the grassland. This is done by talking to a number of NPCs in each region and helping them out with small farm-related tasks, like herding animals or building structures. Once you’ve helped enough NPCs, you unlock a labyrinth challenge where you must banish the Boitatá and restore the region’s protector spirit. Restoring the grassland to its former glory is the game’s main quest. Crucially, this doesn’t feel awkwardly tacked onto Gaucho and the Grassland’s farming sim mechanics. Instead, this plot and its consequences are integrally woven into them. The game’s economy isn’t based on selling crops but relies on building up goodwill with the locals and bartering with them. As you can imagine, helping people out with tasks and clearing out the region improves your reputation and acceptance with them. There is less focus on growing crops in Gaucho and the Grassland than there is in traditional farming sims. Instead, you mostly rely on taking care of animals and even breeding them to make most of your income. Animal byproducts like eggs and milk, and materials found in the environment like wood and stone, are used to craft things. Crafting options are limited, especially compared to other farming sims, but this ties into Gaucho and the Grassland’s interwoven blend of classic farming sim gameplay and grassland restoration. Labyrinth challenges involve light platforming and solving environmental puzzles. After gathering enough Helper Essence, you can enter a respective region’s labyrinth. Each of these feels thematically different, but they are all set-piece areas where you need to evade the Boitatá, which flies overhead or lurks nearby, acting like an environmental hazard. Your goal here is to reach and repair mystical totems or candle altars, which are scattered throughout the maze. Completing these repairs drives the Boitatá away and cleanses the region. When this is done, you’re transported to the Mystic World, where a final puzzle awaits to free the region’s guardian. You can’t “die” in a labyrinth, and there is no combat involved, but making mistakes will reset your position and force you to try again. While we did enjoy Gaucho and the Grassland’s breakaway from traditional farming sim mechanics, several issues harmed our overall enjoyment of what the game had to offer. The game’s UI is clunky, with slow, unresponsive menus. It doesn’t help here that Gaucho and the Grassland is a game that has only limited controller support and doesn’t respond to D-pad inputs when navigating the interface. Certain tasks, like chopping wood, could benefit from being performed automatically or at least from being performed by holding down a button rather than having to click for each action repeatedly. Controlling the camera is awkward, with viewing angles often requiring manual readjustments. In the grand scheme of things, these issues are minor, but they do add up over time. Clocking in at around six hours, Gaucho and the Grassland is a very short game, especially for a farming sim. Admittedly, there is a lengthy post-game, with more sidequests that unlock new crafting recipes, so 100%-ing the game will eat up a lot of time. However, aside from the main overarching story quest, the gameplay is tedious and uninspired. The post-game is overreliant on simple, repetitive fetch quests. It feels like needless padding to justify the €19.99 price point. In all honesty, we’d say that Gaucho and the Grassland’s post-game is actually an unnecessary addition. Technical issues aside, we did enjoy our time in the grassland, but we’re unlikely to return to it now that we’ve dealt with the Boitatá. If you look at the game as a short and sweet experience, then it’s worth checking out. Anything beyond the main quest devalues the game’s overall experience though, so it shouldn’t be taken into account if you’re thinking of picking this one up. Conclusion With its blend of farming sim mechanics, labyrinths, and grassland restoration, Gaucho and the Grassland is perhaps the most unique entry in the genre we’ve ever played -even more so than Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. Tapping into South American culture provides the game with a distinct identity and creates an immersive atmosphere. Gaucho and the Grasslands is rough around the edges, however, and overstays its welcome with its repetitive post-game, but the core experience is short, sweet, and worth checking out.