Leafy Corner Switch Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
As someone who absolutely loves plants but who is also a serial plant murderer, Leafy Corner looked to combine my two loves: cosy games and beautiful foliage in a relaxing game designed for the original Switch. But is it cosy or will I bring my impressive KD ratio into the digital world of horticulture? What’s it like? Choose your pots, pick your seeds and get your watering can ready as we review Leafy Corner on Nintendo Switch.
Leafy Corner sees you running a cosy plant shop with humble beginnings. Starting with your character design, I was surprised by the amount of choice you had. Hair designs, outfits and plenty of colour choices set the scene for how specific you’d be getting with your shop. You open with a basic tutorial that shows you how to set up benches, place pots, and add plants. Benches are customisable straight away through the colour pallet but as I am already a huge fan of greens and natural wood, I didn’t need or want to change anything. You can buy a variety of pots ranging from plain to whimsical. You are taught about watering plants and how you can overwater them, or let them die from underwatering them. I took this as an ominous warning.
You have small plants and pots that you can place in free form, with no item snapping, which took some adjustment for my mild OCD. I found out later that snap to grid can actually be toggled on in the settings, and holding R also did this, but before knowing this, I tried to embrace the whimsicality of it all and decided to add a variety of colours and plants to all the places. Ironically, once I figured out the snap to function, I found I preferred not using it. More pots could be placed without it, and I ended up quite liking the natural aesthetic.
As the game advanced, I realised how much unneeded pressure I had added to myself. As customer requests had me hunting everywhere for a specific plant and customer orders, which were introduced a little later, had me trying to find space for bigger orders or find the plants I had on hand spread everywhere, I quickly decided to spend some time rearranging my plants and planting in bulk for more efficiency. The number of plants you have of each variety can be found in the compendium, but I found it quite annoying to scroll through the list each time looking for any I was missing, and that planting and placing a bunch together gave me a quick visual representation in-game of any I needed to restock.
Completing tasks in these early stages was quite easy and accidental, and you are given leaf points which you can use to unlock more plants and pots, bigger sizes of both and decorations. This is all done via the compendium, which almost acts like a pokedex for your plants. The game is so relaxed, which I found really refreshing. Customers wait patiently when they are in the store with no aggression or frustration if you need a little bit longer to water a group of plants that indicate they were officially thirsty or to finish that placement of pots.
Shop reputation drives progression and forms the main stem of the gameplay loop. There are tasks to complete, and answering customer requests helps work towards unlocking new gameplay mechanics like plant propagation, shop expansions and more decorations. I also found the customer queries quite funny; they were along the lines of it looks like this, with a detailed drawing to more convoluted descriptions of the shapes in their house and the expectations that you’d know what plant type or pot they were chasing. As someone who worked in retail in my teens, it was amusingly true to my experiences in retail.
As a game that seems to have really prioritised tranquility there were a few slight annoyances or odd choices from my perspective. For instance, there was a lot of customisation put into your avatar, but then it seems to be underutilised, only standing at the counter. Watering plants is quite annoying sometimes, as each individual plant has to be cared for. I did find later that watering can be reduced in the settings, but it is still a core part of the gameplay. This could be an indication of why I’ve killed so many plants, though, and is probably more a reflection of my impatience than a real issue with the game.
Along with this, there is the functionality to pause the game or close the shop, but they seemed to be mostly for my own satisfaction rather than a core mechanic of the game. I believe I was already up to day 17 before I realised the day hadn’t actually ended. An odd choice, but it doesn’t really influence the game one way or another and just shows how quietly enthralling unlocking new plants was that it took me that long. I tried closing the shop to see what happened, but it turns out that it didn’t have an impact on gameplay, aside from letting you organise your shop uninterrupted, so I didn’t need to rely on it again. Catching up on watering or redecorating could all be done while the shop was open, and if I wanted to be left alone for a bit, the pause button worked well enough because you could still take the same actions with catching up on watering or redecorating.
Another interesting design choice was the customisation, which definitely varied from the other games I’ve played before. All customisation options are unlocked from the beginning, and there are no barriers, such as progression unlocks or costs, involved to access them. All floors and walls can be quickly edited from the colour palette block on the counter, and as I mentioned earlier, all shelves’ colour palettes can be changed immediately from the colour palette icon when you select them. Your avatar could also be edited quickly just by clicking on them. For me, that really feels like a decided choice, prioritising peace and enjoyment over the typical gameplay barriers I’ve been used to, which was quite refreshing.
Having said all that, Indie developers Fireline Games have clearly put a lot of love into this game. The relaxing tranquillity of plant care, the huge variety of decorations, pots, plant types, customer queries, and the quiet development through progression really speaks for itself and was a really nice break from the sometimes hectic world of gaming. I actually found myself quite inspired by them, and it made me reflect on how simply running a quiet plant shop could bring me so much peace and satisfaction in a world that’s always loud and busy.
The graphics have a minimalist, almost Sims-like look to them. It’s vibrant and colourful, with really cool individual customers with unique outfits and styles. The plants are detailed and true to real life, and I recognised some of my previous plant victims. The game is played out in an isometric view, and you rotate and zoom in and out for a closer look at how your plants are going or to make sure you choose the right pot to water.
What’s really amazing is the subtle progression of the game, from such a simplistic start, adding one pot and plant at a time and a shelf here and there, the introduction of plant varieties and how they grow, be that small and prickly, to long draping vines, there was always variety and it wasn’t long before I realised hours had quietly and pleasantly passed, and I had a full shop of added layers, beautiful decorations, and plenty of customers. And dare I mention that I actually came to enjoy watering the plants? The gentle trickle of water and the satisfaction of filling them up almost became its own sort of ASMR when I’d finally played long enough to quiet my brain into a restful state. Although… I did still manage to kill a couple of the plants and was left wondering why. Overall, I managed to keep the majority alive, answer the customers when they brought in odd “it looks kind of like this” queries, expanded my shop and turned a profit. It really restored my faith in myself and is tempting me to get back out in the garden to revive some of my poor plants.
When played on the Nintendo Switch 2, Leafy Corner does have a sharper appearance, and what appears to be deeper colour ranges, but aside from that, Leafy Corner runs smoothly consistently across both Nintendo Switch 1 and 2. There were no crashes or controller issues during my play-through, delivering a polished experience. For my gardeners looking into accessibility options, you can adjust your cursor size, adjust UI size, increase your outlines and turn off motion blur. With its simple controls, relaxed pace, quiet music and very patient customers, it would be a good game for all abilities, but as always, I recommend further research to find out if Leafy Corner suits your needs. At just under $12.50 AUD, there’s plenty of cosy plant management here, and that can be played well beyond the final expansion of your store.
Leafy Corner is a relaxing, peaceful game that will definitely appeal to plant lovers and people looking for a zen experience. Despite my less-than-stellar real-world gardening record, I found myself drawn into a beautiful little nook of a game world, surrounded by plants and paired with a relaxing musical loop, and before I knew it, hours had passed. Who knew that a game about running a tiny nursery would have me spending hours happily tending to a virtual collection of plants? Apparently, all I needed was a controller and a little Leafy Corner.
So, what’s it like? Leafy Corner is like Tiny Book Shop crossed with a very light Tycoon game.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this does not influence my score
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