As I have aged (mid 30s) I find myself playing more relaxed games for after work and Grow is fantastic for a chilled out game session. The world is very beautiful, the animals are cute. The people could be better but not as bizzare as My Time At Portia. The main gameplay consists of upkeep of a small 'world area'. Growing plants and weeding etc. (There's a nice growing element which I won't spoil but makes it rather fun!) Then using a magic currency to purchase buildings for a district that people move in to. I haven't played too long and feel like I have probably seen everything the game has but it is good. I would suggest not to blitz through it though as I imagine you could 'complete' it within a week. I would also like to see more content for customisation but don't believe that will happen. Although on the plus side every NPC in your district can be customised to a certain degree. :) I am having a blast though and the characters and little surprises are great. (I'd suggest not getting too many spoilers on characters etc from reviews or videos) All in all a good & fun, slow paced sim which, while it does seem complete, could do with a little more content/QOL. Ps. Coppertop is rad.
As a caveat I caveat I haven't played for weeks as I don't have a lot of time, I'd also describe myself as a competent yet casual player. The artstyle and survival aspect of Windbound is very good to me. Each piece from the islands to the fauna and flora to the main character is beautiful yet simple. The survival is pretty much what you'd expect and if you enjoy survival games then you will like this part of it. However there were two things that made me stop as I found them to limit my enjoyment. Firstly combat is a bit off. In a game where if you die you respawn without your boat and most of your inventory the combat should be tight. Quite a few times I found myself either in a knocked down pain loop where I couldn't get up quick enough or hitting a creature smack bang in the middle of it's torso and it didn't register. Second is that sailing is just irritating. It is trying to be as realistic as possible and you have to adjust your mast to factor the wind direction. While this sounds fun in practice, especially when 70+% of the time the wind is heading straight toward you, it makes the main premise of the game a chore. Zig-zagging at a crawl, looking up real life sailing guides and fighting with the controls just to get to another island is not a fun game for me personally. In my opinion they should have included the wind direction to help give you a boost but still allow easy forward travel no matter what as zig-zagging forever is not what you'd expect when playing a sailing videogame. These two issues killed my excitement for the game even after a bit of playtime. Will I play again? Possibly but I doubt I can bypass the problems. Maybe the sailing won't bother you but I would suggest looking up gameplay videos from a new player to get an idea as I didn't.
Just trying to balance out the review score with an actual review and not just whinging about what it costs. Which isn't a review. While I haven't played this PC version (yet) I absolutely loved this game bitd on PS2 and now Gamecube. If you like fantasy worlds and possibly mindless dungeon crawling then you will probably like this. I am someone who enjoys Dynasty Warriors greatly so I can imagine that some people might get a tad bored. If I remember rightly though you can choose one of three characters/races which play differently and have different skills. I personally had many, many fun hours playing. Oh and it is Baldurs Gate as it is based in the world. Like saying Lega Marvel isn't Marvel because it's different.
There isn't anything more I can say that hasn't been said by others except my personal view. I love Mount and Blade: Warband. I have mostly played vanilla as I like to start a game how it was originally and even the basic Warband experience is fantastic. The combat and troop hiring/upgrading is what stands out most to me. I was hesitant at first considering I am more of a console gamer but the mechanics do make you feel like you are actually there in the world. On that alone I can suggest buying this game but there is obviously so much more. I don't have Bannerlord but I wouldn't pass up on Warband at all. Especially so once you delve into the massive modding community. Buy this now!
