Picontier / ピコンティア
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About the Game[2022.03.31 update]
[2021.12.10 update]
[2021.04.22 update]
[2021.01.14 update]
“Picontier” is a story of mystery and fascinating events that occur on an island as the main character, who awakens from a long sleep on the magical island, resumes life from scratch and meets many intriguing islanders. It is a ‘slow life RPG’ that unravels and reveals surprising twists.
The hero awakens from a long sleep to find that the appearance of the island is quite different from their memory. Start your life in the town “Magmail” in the center of the island, making your way with help from the caring AI character “Aila”.
In your island life you can craft items and weapons; you can also fish in the sea and grow crops on the ranch. Use newly created items and weapons to interact with the inhabitants of the island, and as you get to know each other the conversations will change and you will receive crafting recipes.
Materials are required for crafting, and these are collected both in and out of town. The monsters that appear on the field change between day and night, so check recipes for what you want to make and find the right monsters for the job.
By advancing the main quest the story of the entire island will progress and evolve. You’ll learn about the mysterious substance “Piconium”, that exists only on this island, and the strange “black fog” that holds the key to the ‘incident’ – including the mysterious disappearance of Professor Jeda after our hero’s awakening. Experience a wondrous story on a mysterious island, where magical things happen!
Steam User 11
Overall I love this game so far. Extremely charming and a MUST play for fans of games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons. It is very well made. The world is fascinating with a science fiction twist shrouded in mystery that unfolds as you play. Music reminds me of Pokemon. The villagers are interesting and there seems to be loads of content such as mining and expanding your farm coming soon.
The main complaint right now is that to my understanding the game will be released gradually over a six month period in the form of updates so right now I could only play the very first bit of the game which is extremely frustrating. Also the game is very slow, literally, as in the character moves slow and there is no way to run. Hopefully they will add that eventually. I also saw complains about the controls. I play on an X Box controller and it was a little odd at the start but I got used to it quickly so it wasn't a problem. Also you lose more SP and health when it rains which is kind of odd. Hopefully that changes too.
Overall I feel like I can't give a whole review because only a small portion of the game is available right now, but so far what I've been playing is extremely addicting and fun. I just hope the rest of the updates don't take to long to come out or this promising game could get forgotten in the explosion of similar and fully completed games like this that are coming out soon in 2021.
Steam User 16
I like this game so far! It seems like there is a lot going on already and I can't wait for more to be added.
* Cons:
**Controls are kind of confusing at times. It isn't always obvious about which controls are used.
** Of course, more will be added so I don't know if this is fair, but the price is pretty high, especially for the amount that is currently in the game.
Steam User 5
If you can get it discounted, it's worth it. At full price, no way. It's got a high nostalgia factor, but the 'plot' is insensible and slow as molasses. All the tutorials could have fit in the first day, but it drags into a full week. By the end of the day, I'm standing around with nothing to do, and my robot keeps chastising me for sleeping early. There definitely needs to be some work on the pacing!!! Overall it is cute and can be relaxing, but be prepared for repetitive and grind-y gameplay.
Steam User 10
Very Cute enjoyable farming game <3 reminds me of pokemon a bit too! Def worth a purchase! :D
Steam User 4
PIcontier is one of Skipmore's latest games as well it's currently his longest game he's made and I enjoyed it throughout despite it being early access
For some who are not aware by now Picontier is a farm sim type game something on the line like Harvest moon but with some of that Skipmore charm!
Gameplay wise it's very simple, currently you can grow crops, go fishing, talk with the villagers, and have a chicken for your farm, these are all taught to you overtime through the game and you'll easily get into a pattern for each ingame day.
The story in itself currently looks nothing to write about but could get more interesting in future updates as stories have not really been a vocal point in Skipmore's games rather his simple game design philosophy but it from the intro the game and with the current cliffhanger we're in i am interested to see how this will all fold out.
Now what's a farm sim game without villagers?
Thankfully Picontier has quite a variety of unique faces you'll be seeing like a mysterious figure who has an attachment to cats for some reason, a Zombie with a chill attitude and even a talking statue, there's quite the variety to be found here!
There's also some more normal villages, some of which seems familiar to certain other characters (i'm looking at you Dorothy and Paula).
I'd also like a moment to talk about the music as Misoka has once again made some amazing music for this game, though unlike the more energetic tracks from previous Skipmore titles, the soundtrack to this game sounds more adventurous to soothing like going out to the wild where all the monsters are to travelling around your farm and the village, the night time theme's are even better with the tracks becoming even more soothing to listen to just lovely.
Additionally the music has the SNES like feel to it with the soundtrack sounding just like it could be on a SNES game which just makes this soundtrack ever more better.
The art for this game I just want to briefly talk about as although it's not as detailed or complex like his previous work, I find still charming to look at it's like a "pre-Fairune" art style of sorts (which makes sense as I believe this game was developed for over 10 years but I could be wrong on that).
There are a few flaws i'd like to talk about though, for one the translation has a few issues like the pickaxes on the signs being called "pickax" or how some of the text doesn't fit within the text box.
In terms of gameplay i'd say watering the crops is a bit time consuming, requiring to water each patch of soil one by one and how rain for some reason drains even more of your SP than normal which i felt made no sense and was kind of dumb.
Some other gameplay suggestions i'd purpose would be to allow to know where all the villagers are at all times as some leave the village so i'd like if there was some way to indicate that on the map; additionally although the coloured tiles are a cool idea they are way too limited, only being allowed on soil which I feel should be changed to allow you to decorate your entire farm or heck even the wild areas where you fight the monsters.
Overall though I enjoyed Picontier and would recommend the game but I would advise that this game is still in early access so for some it might be best to wait until the game is fully finished and ready to go, still though I am excited to see what new content gets added next by updates and whatever Skipmore is making behind the scenes with his other games.
Also this game has a Yamato statue which is in this game is a goddess which is a 10/10 for me and there should be the option to pray to the statue and become on with the Yamato religion.
Steam User 3
I love this game.
At first I was skeptical to pick this up on account of the "simple" graphics, but once I started playing it... It actually has a lot more personality than can be conveyed through screenshots. It is VERY relaxing and pleasant to play... it's actually helping me get through a rough time at work at the moment. Staff is also very receptive to big reports and criticism and devs seem to churn out updates relatively quickly. Some may think that the price tag is a bit high for early access, but I think it's a decent investment and entirely worth it.
Very charming game, cute characters and graphics, pleasant music. I actually have 0 hard criticisms to make for it. Can't wait to see more!
Steam User 2
It's not quite the game I expected, but I've enjoyed it regardless. Like with anything, I have the things I've enjoyed and those that I haven't too much. From what I've enjoyed:
1. It's a quaint, cosy game in a very mysterious world. There's no real tension (the closest I came to it was when the beach crabs suddenly speed up as you run past them), and it's a peaceful game that's good to play when you're trying to forget the pressures of reality
2. The vast cast of characters is intriguing. Zombies, talking trees and sentient computers are all a completely accepted commodity in this world, and I'm fascinated by them all. And I enjoy the friendship quests that you get each time you level up with them
3. The farming aspect is quite unique, from what I've experienced so far. Instead of using all your money to buy seeds, you can get them from shrines which you can use, in turn, to get more HP/SP once you grant them enough of that vegetable. The idea of being able to capture your animals with a drone to bring back to the farm is also intriguing and hilarious!
If I could pinpoint anything that would improve this game more, it would be too major points:
1. Better explanations. I spent two in game days running around to solve a quest that I could just go to the general store for. The game seems to assume a level of familiarity of game play that it doesn't quite gives us the tools to figure out completely, leaving us to fumble around for a bit. In saying that, if you get past that initial frustration, it's easy to fall into a rhythm
2. The only real quests in the game are the main story quests and the friendship quests. But it would be nice to have something to do while I'm collecting 100 pieces of wood for the main story and don't yet have a friendship question available. Something like a request board or similar would be amazing, as it would give us a daily goal to focus on while we're doing the major things and/or waiting for trees to regrow, etc.
3. I haven't yet reached a stage where this may change, but, at this point, I'm finding myself a little frustrated with how quickly my stamina and health deplete. Perhaps this will be different when I get better tools/am able to get more stamina, but it's leaving me with very little to do after just watering my plants
4. Perhaps a skill level up system would be a good idea?
Either way, I do recommend playing this game if you enjoy this type of play. Don't go into it expecting something huge, but it's intriguing in its own way and quite fun once you get used to the mechanics of it all