WINDS & LEAVES Review: A Nature-Focused, Relaxing VR Experience

PSVR Review Code Provided by TREBUCHET

Going with an easy-going experience that can also keep players entertained can be a difficult balance to design. Luckily, PlayStation VR owners were given a new title with this balance setup when TREBUCHET released their PlayStation exclusive VR title Winds & Leaves. With the single-focused task of replanting the forest to rebuild the nature that has been lost, players will have to utilize their given tools and starting environment to get nature’s roots back in the ground.

Gameplay

Let me start this section off by saying that this game offers the most easy-to-understand controls for VR gameplay. If you are new to VR or are trying to get used to PlayStation VR specifically, then this would be a great game to start with. The controls are forgiving, the game is easygoing, and you can really get used to the space limitations and general environment explorations.

When you start the game, it will have you position where your main tools will be. You will be accessing all of them regularly, so make sure they are comfortably reachable. You can play the game standing or sitting, so be sure to take this into account.

Your tools include a pouch that can hold up to eight different types of seeds, a shovel that can dig a hole to plant the seed into, a nature power storage device, and a time winding spinner. While you will be able to follow a form of visual tutorials as you progress through the game, finding crude pictures on walls that tell you what to do, you will basically be collecting seeds, planting them in the barren grounds, and regrowing the lost forest.

To traverse through the barren lands and cross the dust-filled windstorm, or “dust river” as I called it, you will need to keep your nature storage device powered up. You will find recharge stations pretty much everywhere and they can recharge the device as long as the forest around it is regrown.

Your goal is basically to power the main tree in the different sections of the map and to plant trees along the way. Each seed will have different specifications in the form of three shapes and directions. When you dig a hole in the barren ground, it will show you what seed the ground will be able to grow out of it. If you do not have a seed that meets the requirements, then you can mix seeds to make the new tree. Make sure you collect seeds from new trees, especially when you get a central tree grown. They often are used to progress.

Collecting seeds can be done by picking them up off of the ground or you can climb trees to reach them. Climbing trees is actually made super simple and requires little-to-no effort. You can even use both hands after climbing a tree as if you are just magically hanging on to it. Plus, you don’t have to actually grab a branch of anything to climb up - you can just climb up or down as long as you are within the tree.

Once you have seeds and are trying to regrow the forest, your time winding spinner will be the tool you need. While time does pass by naturally, you can drastically speed it up by just holding the spinner and tilting one way or the other. This is how you get trees to grow rapidly right in front of you. Dig a hole, plant the correct seed, and speed up time. Once the tree is grown, grass will grow around it and you can walk without the use of your nature storage device. Keep doing this till you power main nature points and eventually replenish the lost forest!

You will be granted one extra ability once you get the windmill powered back on. This ability is gliding, which they decided to go with the simple teleporting controls. If there is an area that you can glide to, all you have to do is look at it and hit the button. I was expecting there to be some actual gliding controls when I got this, but am happy that they went with a simplistic approach with this new mechanic as well.

Visuals and Audio

Both aspects here were rather basic overall. The music was gentle and even seemed almost absent at times while the sound effects just brought out the actions you took. I did enjoy the nice tones that play when you regrow a central nature point though.

Aesthetically speaking, this game offers low poly graphics. Maybe they could even be considered mid poly, but if regrown trees are too far away they disappear, but the point at which they disappear isn’t out of sight. The game can register that the trees are there but has put a lot of effort into saving space on graphics despite having simplistic visuals.

Replayability

Not sure if I would say it is replayable, but it definitely provides a unique experience that you can enjoy at your own pace. It doesn’t really need to be replayable since you can just take your time and venture around as you please.

What Could Be Better

Given that this game is very apparently made for beginner VR players, the tutorials are a bit too vague. It would have been nice to have more images on the rocks to provide more clear instructions as there were times that I got confused on what to do because the image was a misrepresentation of what to do.

When it comes to the storm sections, this also made little sense in both tutorial instructions and testing. I tried a few different things and nothing really seemed to match up or be consistent when I ran my tests. Maybe I just didn’t get it, but some way to clear this up would have been nice.

This game would have benefitted from offering a more upgraded form of graphical quality as well. With a focus on replenishing nature and having a target audience of nature-loving VR players, it would have been much more enjoyable to watch a sped-up version of a more realistic-looking plant grown over the poly versions in the game.

Conclusion

Winds & Leaves is a great introduction title for PSVR players. It has a simple premise that just about anybody can get behind and offers gameplay controls that anybody can grasp. I enjoyed that it had a form of puzzle-solving in the overall experience, but didn’t care for the provided lonely sensation given no narrator, voice for the character, and only wall drawings for a tutorial. Still, it is a fun game to hop on every now and again with low demands from the player all around.