Plantera is a simple and cute 2D side-scrolling farming game, meant more for relaxation than intense gameplay.
In almost every way, it is more of a “Clicker” than a Sim. That is, a lot of the pleasure gained is from watching numbers increase. Your farm starts small, and your first few coins go into some simple carrot patches and berry bushes. Click a piece of delicious fruit or produce, and it’ll vanish into more coins. The process repeats pretty much forever. As you grow your farm, little helpers show up to save you the hassle of furiously clicking your produce, though they’re a bit slow.
As you gain levels (which is done by collecting coins – what else?), you unlock more and more upgrades to your farm. You can expand the horizontal map for addition garden plots, extra helpers, and even livestock. There’s an option to bring some dogs to the party, which scare away predators like foxes and rabbits who might burgle your precious coin, but I haven’t noticed any detrimental effects when I just leave my lil’ guys to their own devices.
Some of the upgrades will quickly skyrocket you to achievements and a nice pile of cash, and your workers will even continue to harvest for a couple hours after you close the game. I bought a couple of multiplier upgrades and went from this…
Well, THAT was frighteningly easy. Time to buy more stuff!
There isn’t much of an end-game to this title, but that’s okay. I used to be a hardcore completionist when it came to gaming in my youth, but sometimes it’s nice to lose myself in something far more casual. Pleasant tune? Check. Cute art? Check. Watching numbers increase forever? Check. This fits the bill pretty well.
The game gets pretty repetitive and cluttered after only a short while, but there are plenty of achievements to unlock. While it’s tough for me to give a casual game like this a hard star rating, I’ll just go ahead and say that if you’re looking for a casual something for a $2.99 price tag, this isn’t a bad add-on!
Plantera is currently available to PC users only.
3.5/5
