A bug-catching game with a stylish design and incredible vibes.
I filled in every last creature constellation and looked to the heavens. Is this salvation? Is this victory? Is this the end of Paradise Marsh? Indeed it was the end of the new game Paradise Marsh, primarily made by developer LazyEti. This is not a long game as I reached credits within a few short hours, but it is a focused one that delivers a snack-sized experience with an excellent balance of playful, enchanting, and contemplative.
From a first-person perspective, you roam around a procedurally generated world equipped with a bug net. Your primary goal is to catch bugs and critters, though the specifics and to what end don’t quite come together initially. If I had to nail down a secondary goal for this game, it would be simply to play. The way the world is generated is novel; it’s presented as endless. Walk in a direction and you’ll keep on going forever, seeing fuzzy pop-in graphics bring in one of a handful of visual biomes to the foreground. Everything is stitched together in a holistic way, bouncing between swamps and rivers and ice floes. I won’t pretend to know the math and science behind the procedural generation, but when you start to explore the world, it all fits perfectly. You might come across a soccer ball you can kick around or a mushroom that you can eat to let you temporarily fly. The goal comes back to collecting those critters, which have recurring settings and often make visual noise in the distance to point you in the right direction. They each have their own movement and nuance as well, so there’s a learning curve as to how to approach them correctly.
As you collect bugs, you complete pages in a notebook, which also sends the collected bugs to a monolith that connects to the stars when interacted with. Every star has its own bizarre and thoughtful monologue, and when you collect the required amount for a creature, you can draw their constellation and complete their quest. Do that for every creature and you complete the game. Problems do pop up in that the late stages can be a slog. As you collect the required amounts for a creature, the chance of them appearing in the procedurally generated world is removed. It overly simplifies the world, especially since by this point you have probably seen all of the playful quirks and interaction nestled in the areas.
Thankfully, even when the going gets repetitive, the vibes of Paradise Marsh are off the charts. The tone-setting music from Disasterpeace (Fez, Hyper Light Drifter) is tremendous, and the chunky 3D world is stylish and wondrous. A handful of mysterious in-game achievements encourage further exploration of the world beyond catching the bugs. Your time in this paradise might be short, but it’s memorable and enjoyable.
