Let’s set a scene for a bit shall we? The year is 2020, many people are still in lockdowns depending where in the world you are, and a free to play game is starting to take the world by storm. That game is Genshin Impact by MiHoYo. For many casual gamers who hadn’t heard of gacha games, Genshin Impact put MiHoYo on their radar. Depending on who you were, this may have been for the fact that it was influenced by Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and seemed very familiar to it. For others, it may have been the story, the characters, the art, and how it felt like a very polished RPG that you could play for free. To this day Genshin Impact is still on going with lots of characters, multiplayer events, and a rather large following.
Why bring up the past? Because MiHoYo is at it again, this time with their upcoming release Petit Planet, described as a cozy galactic life sim that’s free-to-play and cross-platform. As with any life sim that has neighbors and planting there are parallels to games such as Animal Crossing, Pokopia, and Stardew Valley. Will this free to play game push these games to do what they do even better or is MiHoYo looking to become the undisputed cozy sim champion? There’s a lot to explore in this beta so let’s not waste any time.
As a reminder, this is all a review from a data-wipe beta. This means that those who were able to get into the beta were exposed to some concept art and potentially even unfinished renderings. That doesn’t mean these are bad, but it gives you a glimpse into some of the bright and vibrant colors that many have come to expect from MiHoYo games. It’s actually interesting to see the steps that MiHoYo is taking to bring the game to life. Much like you will be bringing your own planet to life. How appropriate!
The beta tells us a little bit about the Starsea and Oumuamua, a space whale, who brings you onto your new home planet. You meet Mobai and Elsasani who introduce you to the planet registry and will be there to walk you through all the basic steps of growing your own planet. That’s right, unlike Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley where you only get a plot of land, this world is your oyster. Currently in beta you can choose between two base planets. No matter which you choose, you’ll have ways of accessing resources from those other planets in time.
So, is there a story?
If you’re used to other current MiHoYo games such as Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact, and Zenless Zone Zero, you may be wondering if this beta comes with the storytelling that MiHoYo has provided these last few years. Unlike the narratives in those previous games, the beta doesn’t display the same level of storytelling. Of course, this genre doesn’t require intense narratives in the same way.
However, what it does offer is each neighbor having their own background and story for you to read. Reading their story will give you insights into who your neighbors are in addition to their conversations with you. The more you get to know these neighbors through quests and their personal growth, the more you’ll learn about them. Each time you unlock and read a part of their story you receive the in-game currency dough to upgrade homes or spend at Glenn’s shop.
Neighbors & Residents
So if the game doesn’t have a strong overall story and it’s all about the residents, who exactly are they? Your first three permanent residents will be Elsasani, Glenn, and Mobai. While each will bring their own charm to the planet, they do all serve their own purposes. Think of Mobai as your planet building guru who will help you grow your planet. Glenn will be the shopkeeper where you can sell items or purchase items as you go. Elsasani will be your friend and help you travel throughout the starsea.
Some residents will find their way to your planet on their own such as Yungao. Yungao, with her southern drawl, will teach you in the ways of farming and agriculture in the Starsea. They land on your planet for their own reasons and you can invite them to stay with you after completing a quest. Mobai will be impressed people are attracted to your planet so quickly but this helps to get the game moving along. However, not everyone will end up with the same neighbors on their planet. You’ll find other neighbors by exploring the Starsea and finding them on other islets. Consider this one of the gacha elements the game has to offer.
What do you DO all day?
Those who have played other cozy life sims can probably guess what much of your time will spent on. You’ll be working towards being the best farmer, crafter, cook, harvester all around. With so many planets whizzing by you, there are opportunities to travel to other worlds as well. We’ll do a bit of a deeper dive in each area.
Farming
Farming is a must in Petit Planet as this will provide you with many resources for your planet. Whether you are planting crops for food, trees for shade, or bamboo to be aesthetically pleasing, this is a must. Petit Planet offers what they call precision farming. This allows players to hopefully not mistakenly plant the wrong crops in the wrong area. Farming is also extremely important here as this can impact the sort of critters you see on your planet for collection. You’ll set up your plots of land, choose which seeds to plant, and water accordingly. Be sure that you water those thirsty plants often or they will wither away. Don’t worry too much if they do wither away, you can use them as fertilizer.
Crafting
What’s a good cozy game without crafting? Petit Planet offers plethora of pieces to be crafted and customized by you. Try your hand at making a bookshelf, or designing a themed-lamp. And yes, there are recipes for crafting. Lots of them. Probably too many to count at the current time.
The actual crafting is simple. Step-up to a workbench, pick what you want to make, and make it (assuming you have the materials to make it). Each time you craft an item, you’ll be a cutscene of you working. I’ll be honest – after the first two times, I started skipping the scene. My sincere hope is that they allow players to turn off this cutscene permanently, as you’ll need to manually skip it each time as it stands right now.
Cooking
Cooking dishes will be vital for two reasons. The first big one – using your tools requires “strength” which can only be replenished with food and drink. The second reason – repeatedly making said dishes will upgrade your “level” with each dish, making them more effective at higher levels.
The cooking itself is straight-forward. Grab two ingredients and combine them in a pot. The further you progress your cooking, the more appliances you’ll have access to. One of the first ones that you’ll unlock is the blender to make tasty drinks with.
There are various recipes that exist in the world, that can be gifted by Neighbors, purchased from various shops, or just found in the wild! But you don’t need to follow a recipe! There is a “freestyle” mode that allows you to merge together ingredients to see what you come up with.
Harvesting
If you’ve played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’re well aware of the harvesting grind. Catching bugs. Landing fish. Collecting ore from rocks. Chopping trees for wood. You’ll be doing this for crafting resources – or just to sell it all to Glenn. That being said, however, I have noticed that there does seem to be longer “respawn” times for certain items in the world, especially when compared to Animal Crossing.
Other interesting tidbit – trees, apparently, cannot be chopped down and can only be removed by “adding” elements to world (in terms of structures) that forcibly remove them.
Travel the Starsea
Of course you don’t want to over harvest your own planet. Or even if you do, you might find yourself in need of new resources. Never fear, Elsasani will help you travel the starsea by providing you a car capable of interstellar travel. You’ll find yourself out in the Starsea with neighbors you can bring along to harvest goods from other planets. The neighbors you bring with you will be harvesting alongside you. Didn’t think they could live on your planet for free did you?
Travelling the Starsea is also a great way to find new neighbors to join your planet. Perhaps the rebel Rebella will find their way to you. Harpeno is another NPC you can find on your travels here. They worry about the planets and are looking to have EV machines on all planets. Who said the game isn’t somewhat energy conscious despite some of the AI that may exist in the game? I’m also mindful of my energy at times letting the neighbors do the work while I set in comfort if the islet offers seating.
Galactic Bazaar
The Galactic Bazaar is where a lot of the multiplayer action takes place. For players who do not have other friends playing, this is a great place to meet new acquaintances. You can interact with players throughout your time in the bazaar whether it is while playing a word game, dancing on the stage, or having a drink in the cafe. This is where we got to see how friendly other players were and how well or not well the NPC acted.
There are some fun moments you can have here and some will even happen organically. There were times during the beta test where I’d grab an instrument and others would join me for a jam session. Other times I’d sit in the cafe and talk to other players to ask how their experience was going.
Pros
There is a lot to love about this game, especially for those who love a good cozy life sim. The art style is quite cute and familiar. For those who always want to remain busy, there is also a lot to do. You can always keep redecorating, harvesting materials for more crafting, and spending time with your neighbors. Of course, some quests will be locked behind real time so progressing quests may take time (more on that in our cons section).
Another strength of the game so far is that the other players in this game are all quite friendly. Perhaps these games always attract a good group of players but everyone in the beta has been kind. From exchanging gifts and flowers to just casual fun conversation on their thoughts of the game. When players have visited my planet, they’ve all been kind, provided nice chatter, and even left a comment on the planet board. Petit Planet seems to be cultivating a lot of positivity in the game as a whole and with the constant possibility for multiplayer interactions, the lack of negativity is welcome.
The game itself, as is experienced early on, is rife with design options. Petit Planet actually lends a hand on this front by provide you an stepped-back overview of each design set that can be crafted and what items belong to which crafting set. So if you’re a design enthusiast in these kinds of games that wants everything to match, you’ll be in luck with this guide.
Petit Planet also doesn’t straddle you with a mortgage right away. Your starter home really is a free starter home so enjoy. There’s probably a small bit of shade to Tom Nook on this one but who doesn’t love a good joke?
Cons
One big con with the game in its current iteration is the real time system. When they tell you come back tomorrow to continue with a quest, they truly mean tomorrow. Yes, your tomorrow. Now, if the game was already accessible to play across platforms, this may not be so bad. I could log in to the game from my phone and get everything done then. Water my crops, check in on my neighbors, and move along with my life. However, currently the beta, for all the right reasons, is locked to whatever platform you initially choose and the team chose PC. This means missing a day also means our crops could wither away. That also meant my quest may not progress for another day.
For those players who are trying to grind through quests, this can feel like the game comes to an immediate halt. This will seemingly be resolved when you can progress through on mobile if you choose to. So while it’s not a permanent con it’s worth noting. This also means that hopefully when the game launches, it will launch on all platforms at once. And if you’re curious, the Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s manner of “time travelling” may not be an option. Especially as the game is linked to your PC and/or mobile device. I’ll be honest – I don’t know if I’ll be messing with my devices’ time settings solely to progress a quest line.
Another rather glaring issue popped up while trying to enjoy word games at the Galactic Bazaar. Unfortunately it appears that the AI in the game is not functioning as well as it could. In the clip seen here, while trying to use elephant as a word that begins with e, the NPC, Riffe, said that was incorrect. This was quite annoying as a player, although it makes for funny content. It was nice to see that the other players were quick to jump in too. When we later moved on to another word ‘open’ and I attempted to use the word nonsense, we were told that was unacceptable. Everyone took the comment well, but it also meant a flaw in the programming for the NPC. There’s still time for the team to revisit this and make sure the game works as intended.
On rare occasions, the game also doesn’t fully load in correctly. Your character may be clad in a great outfit yet when you exit your home, you’ll see the character in nothing but black attire. While within a few moments the game will load in correctly, it can be a shock to see this. Especially when you have spent a lot of time and dough to get the perfect outfit for your avatar. There have also been instances of cutscenes playing and the ground itself…failing to fully populate, leaving black voids in space behind characters.
Overall
Fans of the cozy farm life sim will find a lot to love about this game. Despite some of the cons, Petit Planet is already shaping up to fill the hole while waiting for the next Animal Crossing. As it is a MiHoYo game, there’s also a lot of room for them to continue to grow. If they follow their pattern it will be with with patches instead of the DLC model. MiHoYo has relied on their free to play games with gacha elements for purchase so this most likely won’t turn out to be a Disney Dreamlight Valley situation where it’s promised free to play and then rescinded.
Since this is a beta wipe, those who may feel they’ll be too far behind when it launches don’t have to worry. All the work we’ve put in so far will disappear one day and we’ll be starting from scratch too. This means there will be plenty of time to make friends across the Starsea. If comfy cozy is your jam and you don’t want the tragic backstories and all too real backstories that come from Stardew with the art of Animal Crossing, this could be one to check out. You don’t even need a Switch 2 or overly powerful PC for Petit Planet.
Huge thank you to MiHoYo for providing us access into the beta test this round. We’ll be keeping a close eye on Petit Planet for its full upcoming release.
Were you able to get in on the beta test of Petit Planet? If so, how are you oenjoying the game? Will you be anxiously awaiting the full release date? Let us know in the comments below or by joining us over at the Gamer Social Club Discord.
