Paleo Pines Review

Normally, before I start a review, I write a short introduction to the genres, developer, and publisher to start off the article smoothly. This time around, the intro is more of a warning; if there's anything you take from this review, it's that if you're looking for a life simulation with cute dinosaurs — kind of like Stardew Valley with reptiles — this is not it. Paleo Pines is not a farming/life sim; it's much more about exploration and collecting. Now that that's out of the way, we can get on with the rest of the actual reviewing.

In Paleo Pines, you start off your journey as you arrive at the titular island and discover that you're quite lucky to have a Parasaurolophus as a companion, as they all have mysteriously disappeared. With the help of the townsfolk, your best buddy Lucky, and the small army of dinos you'll collect along the way, you're tasked to uncover the mysterious history of why they left!

Throughout your journey, you'll find tons and tons of dinos to tame and take home. Aside from seeing all sorts of types — from the easily recognisable T-Rex to the impossible-to-pronounce Archaeopteryx — you'll also discover different abilities that will help you traverse the land with ease. In total, there are nine different skills (which help you do things like break rocks and water crops) you'll find mixed and matched throughout your journey in Paleo Pines, and they'll all be crucial to not only being able to explore everything but doing so without pulling your hair out. 

Unfortunately, Paleo Pines' biggest downfall is the lack of hand-holding. While this works well in most games nowadays, since most seasoned gamers can find their way without a tutorial pretty easily, this doesn't apply when there's a unique approach to mixing genres like Italic Pig did here. My wife summarised it quite perfectly while she watched me play — it's a life simulation lite. You have some of the basic elements, such as character creation, your own ranch, the community of characters, etc., but a lot of that lacks the depth one expects from a game in the genre. This isn't to say it’s bad — it just means that unless you know what you're stepping into, you might be very confused and frustrated (I know I was at one point).

Paleo Pines is, first and foremost, a title that focuses a lot on exploration and collection. Even if you're not actively taming every dinosaur, the game's journaling mechanic has you jotting down every discovery you make, whether it's a new species or a new plant. And while it does have farming in the form of crops, watering, fertiliser, etc., it can all very well be nearly automated through the dinosaurs with the Tender ability. I was taken aback and suspicious of how easy it was to earn money and the amount of yield I'd get from picking up my crops — for just 20 Potato seeds, I got nearly 300 Potatoes back! In a farming sim, this is outrageous and downright broken (in a fun way, to me, at least) but it makes sense in Paleo Pines because you're not supposed to be stuck spending over half your day tending to crops or dinos: you're supposed to get things ready quickly and be out the ranch door ASAP to uncover the next secret in the valley.

Because I didn't know this, I treated every step of the way like I would a life/farming sim: I hoarded some crops every yield, I heavily focused on farming, and I was downright greedy with my resources and attention. Thanks to this misunderstanding, I ended up grinding way more than necessary, and the game became stressful due to the confusing mixed signals I was getting every step of the way — I reaped an enormous number of Potatoes, but I needed a substantial amount of money to sustain my dinosaur-obsessed habits.

This wouldn't have been an issue if there had been a bit more hand-holding. Looking back now that I've finished the game, I don't think I grasped much of anything at first — from the game's concept to the actual mechanics, everything was confusing. As an example, I didn't understand what the Tender-skilled dinosaurs did or how to make them do it, I was terrified of putting different dinos together and losing one of them to murder via penmate, and I was horrendously confused by the game's odd pacing. In some areas, such as financially, I felt like I was advancing weirdly fast; in others, such as narrative, I was going at a turtle pace. 

You're not supposed to get to know the community and marry in Paleo Pines or spend hours decorating your home — you're supposed to collect dinosaur buddies to help you out on the ranch. They're there to maximise your time and help you go out and have fun exploring while still maintaining some sort of farming sim gameplay; instead of cute pets you bond with, they're more like helpers you can befriend, and that memo went over my head completely. 

Because Paleo Pines isn’t a life sim, it’s missing a lot of what fans might expect of the genre; for example, you won’t get married or form deep connections with the NPCs and you won’t spend an egregious amount of time decorating your house. Instead, you’ll be out and about in the gorgeous lands as you fill up your journal with all sorts of dinosaurs, plants, and people with the goal of reuniting humanity with the Parasaurolophus once again. The beauty and magic isn’t in living day by day as a farmer but in the adventure of exploring an unknown land full to the brim with colourful and adorable dinosaurs. I had the most fun in Paleo Pines when I’d forget that it was a “life sim” and instead got lost in the wilderness trying to find the rarest variant of my favourite dino so I could tame it or when a trail of new foraging items would get me lost in the new lands. 

I guess, to summarise, what I’m saying is that the game is great fun when you enter knowing exactly what you’re in for. It may not be perfect, but in my opinion, Italic Pig did a great job at making an adventurous collect-a-thon title with a splash of farming sim here and there. If you’re a fan of cute animals, running so quickly you can almost feel the breeze through the screen, and tons of journal entries to fill in, I recommend you check out Paleo Pines.