Paradise Marsh from indie LazyEti is a charming and cozy narrative experience that will take you on a bite-sized journey through the countryside. Check our Paradise Marsh review!
Paradise Marsh from indie LazyEti is a charming and cozy narrative experience that will take you on a bite-sized journey through the countryside. Etienne Trudeau is the real name of LazyEti, and is the single developer behind this one, with audio from Disasterpeace and writing by Raphael Dely. Laundry Bear also helped with the porting process to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch. It offers a short, procedurally generated journey that you can play through at your own pace.
Your adventure will begin while looking at the starry sky. After using the right analog stick to look around the sky and using the ZR button to form a constellation, a bug net will magically fall from the sky. You’ll then get to walk with the left analog stick as you look around with the right one, jumping with the B button if needed. You can then interact with the Y button or quickly swing your net. Maybe you’d like to sneak up on a creature, for which pressing and holding down the ZR button will be a safer bet.
Each area that you explore will have some specimens for you to catch with your net. Take, for example, the dragonfly I caught in the swamp a couple of minutes into the game. It’s a day creature that is a bit unpredictable. When caught, I was provided with an interesting description: “Switch and fierce as a spear, this flying critter is commonly perceived as an icon of strength and courage.” Every creature type that you grab with the net will be given its own entry in your journal, along with being added to your collection.
A bit later, I found a literal message in a bottle. Inside, a scroll that said. For an instant, the warmth of the sun felt so familiar. But as soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn’t recognize the surroundings. How could I have wandered this far from home? I shut my eyes, hoping the feeling would come back. Only to find my restless heart pounding.” This message was added to the journal as well, and it was then that I noticed that there was room for another 12 messages to be registered on its pages.
And then, the day turned into night, and a pair of peculiar monoliths in the distance started to glow. After interacting with said monoliths, a pair of stars showed up in the sky. And after interacting with the stars? They spoke! The more creatures that I captured with the net, the more stars I could send into the sky at night by interacting with the glowing monoliths, and they all had something to say about my adventure. Each constellation has a distinct personality, which is easy to understand from how they express themselves.
Paradise Marsh has an in-game achievements system with 13 different objectives for you to complete. Talking too much about them would spoil the overall experience for you, but I can at least give you the names of said 13 achievements so that you can start to wonder what you’ll need to do to get all of them. The achievements are Romantic, All-Star Player, Holiday Spirit, Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy, Chronicler, Wanderer, Entomologist, Frog Leaps, Chatty, Poetry Enthusiast, One Man Band, The End, and Long Distance Call.
By going into the settings menu, you’ll be able to tailor your experience with Paradise Marsh. Along with being able to choose the rumble intensity, how much screen shake and text wobble there should be, if a crosshair should be present, and the audio mix for the music and SFX, as well as adjusting the field of view, there’s also a pair of interesting options to work with. The first one is the color blindness option which allows you to choose between Pronotopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, Monochromacy, EnhanceR, and EnhanceG. The second one will allow you to choose the pixel ratio for the game’s graphics so that it looks as fine or as chunky as you want it to be.
Paradise Marsh is a charming and cozy narrative experience that will take you on a bite-sized journey through the countryside, with around 2-3 hours or so needed to complete the whole thing. This does mean that it’s a game that won’t be for everyone, given its very specific gameplay loop. Other than a long loading time when first starting the game and some slowdown here and there, there’s not much to complain about here. Paradise Marsh is out on Nintendo Switch with a $12.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Paradise Marsh review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by LazyEti.
