Calico Review – A Pastel World and Cat Cafe

A “simulator” of everyday life with a very good atmosphere

Peachy Keen games brings us a life simulator with very good vibrations called Calico, where we will take care of a cafeteria with the most Kawaii animals. Our goal is to decorate the cafe to make it more pleasant for neighbors and customers and for them to come for our sweet recipes.

To start we have to create our character, with a wide variety of color, shape and hairstyle options, but we started badly with an editor that gave few clues. It will take a long time to figure out if we want to become a good character and still we only have one garment, so we will have to go through the editor later.

And here’s one of the Calico startup issues, and that is the game (when not updating) is coming completely in english, but not only that, but the text size is tiny and expensive to read. We got off to a bad start where to find something that we have to read a lot, because the game is not at all intuitive.

Even so, we are presented with a beautiful world of pastel colors that appear to be made entirely of watercolors, although the designs are not very elaborate in the vegetation or the figures. The version I analyzed is the Xbox Series X version and has occasional frame drops, as well as popping and texture failures.

There is a night and day cycle, added to varying weather conditions, such as wind, rain, or snow, which gives it extra beauty despite its mistakes, but still doesn’t influence gameplay at all, but is simply a visual feature. With that, the world of Calico is beautiful, a place to undoubtedly live quietly admiring its landscapes while we do our chores.

As for the sound, the characters speak a strange unintelligible language, as happens in many titles of the same style and features fairly classic sound effects. The soundtrackAlthough listened to, it becomes quite repetitive and it does not benefit from a great variety either, whereas it should be the ideal company for our walks through the villages.

But let’s move on to what really matters, the gameplay, which is based on three points: decorating and making recipes in the cafe, meeting neighbors and shopping, as well as unlocking new areas. It’s always like that, opening the first space, meeting some neighbors and preparing the recipes to sell.

The Magic He is present in Calico, as we will have to meet witches to do favors so that they reward us with potions that we will use on ourselves and on pets. The latter is fundamental in the game and should have more complex mechanics, but the only difficult thing in the title is figuring out what to do.

Our cafeteria has the distinction of having pets to play with and stroke, and we will have to find and tame them. It’s very simple, in fact, too simple, and although we have a few tools for this, it’s not even necessary, because by taking them in our arms and ordering them to follow us they are already ours ( you can also tell them to go straight to the cafe).

In this type of game, it is the mechanics in its processes that make it fun, but Calico quickly becomes repetitive with the fault of being too simple. As for missions, they are just messengers, going from point to point, coming back, returning to the same place and returning to the point of origin for inducements that are also not exciting.

Unlock new areas, get new potions and recipes, are the incentives offered by the simulator, meet new people, get clothes and furniture to decorate and this type of item. We will also come across other types of animals besides cats, which we can tame and send to the cafe, such as crows, wolves, bears, and other forest beasts.

The gameplay varies in the cafe, and more specifically in the kitchen, where we will narrow down to prepare the recipes by hand adding the ingredients that the recipe calls for. Here’s another issue in the gameplay, as the physics doesn’t help when adding ingredients and it can be quite frustrating.

With potions, we can increase the size of our pets and mount them to move, unlock the passage to other areas and perform different missions. Make no mistake, it’s great to ride a giant cat or dog, but maybe it’s something for younger players.

We don’t really know what to do, because between the minute of the texts and the simplicity of the missions, maybe we want to give it more turns than it actually has. There are also small bugs in these missions, as you can get trapped in objects, or the animals behave like “if they have the devil inside” (that’s good for laughs), giving the impression that we are dealing with an unfinished (or not properly polished) title.

We will forgive you for the low price, and because it is more a title oriented towards children who like this type of simple, rather contemplative mechanics, and in order to obtain all the furniture and all the clothes to personalize our cupboard and cafeteria.

Although sometimes, especially at the beginning, we are not sure how to make money, because even if we prepare the counter with the initial recipes, the people who visit the cafe sit at the tables but we cannot interact with it. them except to buy them something or to chat.

In conclusion, we are faced with a user-friendly game, with good vibrations like a flag and a very pleasant colorful graphic appearance, but which lacks in terms of depth, interest in doing missions and mechanics in the essentials that it offers the player. He gets bored right away if you’re old enough, but even the smallest in the house loves him because of the contact with animals, collecting clothes and making recipes.

Even so, it instantly becomes repetitive, with a lack of interest in how to do missions and mostly because of the simplicity of the mechanics, not up to the mark of current life simulation games.

Calico is available for Xbox one, Xbox Series X | S, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and PC. Here is the game trailer: