However, before you can start, a tutorial takes you through the basics of changing clothes, farming and building. Although the game is played in real-time, the farming in the tutorial is done instantly. A Pretty Princess What to choose? Before getting to the gameplay, let me just say that the world of Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is absolutely wonderful to traverse. For starters, it copies Animal Crossing's style almost exactly where the world appears to take place on a cylinder with a narrow horizon that rotates as you move up and down. On top of that, whenever you see a fellow princess or bunny, you can high-five them with both hands as an excited greeting which always put a smile on my face. Overall, this is one pleasantly happening place to be. 🐰 Hurry up, Claire; I'm getting sleepy... Put on your favourite dress You and your three princess friends are going to Carrot Isle to savour the delights of the Princess Cake. The talking rabbit butler, Asbel, transports you to the island. But, oh no, the island is deserted, except for Rabbit House and the old town square. No fruit, no animals, no shops and no recipes. But fear not; you and your magical bracelet will be able to restore everything as your happiness level rises. There is no touchscreen functionality, but at least the font size is appropriate for handheld play. The game autosaves, but there is also a manual save, so you can exit whenever you wish. There is only one instance of the game per user, but each user on the console has their own island. The game works in real-time, but no night/day or season cycles exist.

Whilst we will do everything we can to meet the delivery times above, there may be factors outside of our control and we cannot guarantee delivery within this time frame. One of Video Chums' core principles is "it's better to be late and thorough than it is to be early and misinformed". 🧐 I love title screens that feature your created character Welcome to Carrot IsleThe controls are simple and well explained, with an excellent ‘help’ menu if you need a reminder. However, the game does not support a Pro Controller, reducing my overall enjoyment. In addition, some of the interaction is cumbersome, for example, exiting a shop and confirming their farewell message. Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is a relaxing farming simulator that features a wide range of customisation options as you help to decorate Carrot Isle. You care for animals, grow crops and gather resources to craft new buildings and items. New Beginnings There is a timer to making items, however. The base time is five minutes, though they can be up to ten minutes. These timers apply to crops, the animals, crafting buildings, and restaurants. When I first encountered this mechanic, I thought it would get annoying fast. That wasn’t the case, though. I found that there’s enough to do around Garden Island that I’d get swept up in something else and not even realize five or ten minutes had passed. Once you’ve created your princess, the game briefly overviews what happened before and sets the scene for the new adventure. The beautiful island getaway, Carrot Isle.

When you start the game, you choose your name, skin tone, and eye shape. You can’t alter these, but everything else, that is, eye colour, hair style and colour, makeup and clothes, can be. And, gosh, there are a lot of options. Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is the next adventure in the Pretty Princess series. Having previously restored the castle in Pretty Princess Party, you now have to revive a magical garden to bake the Princess Cake. If you played the previous game, there will be familiar aspects. But this is a stand-alone game, and I certainly didn’t feel I’d missed out on not having restored the castle. Magical Garden – Carrot Isle Another feature of Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island that we love is the fact that there isn’t a stamina system. It does take some of the realism out of the game, but a lot of us can admit that the pesky stamina bar that depletes excruciatingly fast can be annoying in other titles within the same genre. What We Don’t Like… With all of that in mind, Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is an incredibly simple game where there's really not much to its easy-breezy gameplay. It can even be a bit tedious if you're not in the mood for mindless relaxation and I also found some parts to be rather limiting. For example, why can't I alter buildings in interesting ways or give my princess a prominent snout and a shiny coat of fur? 🤔 Seeing bunnies get this excited is worth the price of admission

I always overthink when it comes to decorating and tend to leave it until the end. Perhaps I’m just not the decorating kind of gamer! Unfortunately, my indecisiveness meant that when I presented the Princess Cake, and everyone commented about how far the island had come and how wonderful it looked, my island didn’t look that much different from when I first landed. So if you want some great end-of-game photos, decorate just south of Rabbit House! Now I’ve decorated it as pretty as a picture! To raise your Happiness Level you need to earn Green Clovers, which can be efficiently obtained by completing island requests. These requests are fairly easy to fulfil, with most revolving around harvesting specific crops, produce, minerals, and other resources that you can gather on Carrot Isle.

If you want to collect all the items, you will need to complete all the challenges. Most will be completed by just playing the game. You get a reward for each complete challenge, whether décor, clothing or makeup. Gameplay Additionally, Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island sadly suffers from the typical Switch frame drops at times. We do want to clarify that this isn’t a major issue, and the game can be comfortably played without too much disruption. Although, we also have a few qualms with how slow the game loads when interacting and opening up dialogue with NPCs. When you first arrive on Carrot Isle, you’re introduced to the townsfolk – who are mostly rabbits. You also meet your fellow princesses, who each run their own shops on the island. You receive lumina (money) and gratitude points (increases happiness level) for each completed request. The requests vary; some might be a flower, whilst others might be 3 or 4 crafted items. Obviously, the more complicated the request is, the larger the reward. The rabbit NPCs are cute, and I wish their name appeared when they collected their items.In a way, it feels like Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is designed for the kids who played Pretty Princess Party and grew up enough to be ready for an Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley game, but still might not be completely prepared for the patience and skill those might require. This is primarily a game in which you are gathering items so you can meet requires or create new buildings, resources, or decorations. So after you buy seeds and plant crops, you need to wait a certain number of real-world minutes to harvest them. Those items could then be used in recipes to make dishes. Or, if it is something like grass or wheat, to feed to farm animals to get items like eggs or wool. You need to catch butterflies for different colors for dyes. Trees are chopped for planks of wood or you could mine ore for metals, and turning in those could help with buildings or furniture. Feeding animals means waiting real-world time for them to produce materials. Creating at a “shop” means bringing specific items and waiting for it to be made, especially if other materials need to be made ahead of it. While the game seems pretty empty at first, that soon changes when you increase your Happiness Level. This sense of progression makes the game much more enjoyable, rather than it just being a standard decorating/farming simulator. Game Progression As I learn more about humans and their princesses, I appreciate what Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island has to offer so let's play. Unlike harvesting, crafting will produce just one item. Most items take 5 minutes to make, with some of the higher-level recipes taking 10 minutes. You have five crafting slots, which work in sequence. Some crafted items are ingredients in other recipes, so I found having multiple shops produce these items (e.g. salt, sugar, cream and butter) useful. At one point, I had eighteen Dyed in the Wool shops to boost my production, as most of the makeup, clothing and décor use dyes. There is a limit to the number of shops you can place, although this increases with each level. The Magical Garden Island Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands) may take longer to reach you.

The whole game revolves around completing the requests to receive gratitude points. Gratitude points increase the happiness level. The higher the happiness level, the more buildings, décor, outfits, seeds, and recipes are available. You must get to level 15 to complete the main objective of making the Princess Cake. Each happiness level is around 500 gratitude points more than the previous one – enough of a challenge without being ridiculously hard. If the request is too difficult, you can decline it, though you’ll have to wait 5 minutes before declining any more. Shopping Yum… fresh juices! One thing we didn’t like about the game, was that you’ll be doing all of your tasks in constant daylight. There’s no nighttime, pretty sunsets, or weather changes at all. This isn’t exactly game-breaking, but it would be nice to have a day/night cycle. Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island may look like just another Animal Crossing New Horizons clone, but it’s so much more than that. We’ll admit that even we were skeptical when we first loaded the game up. Yet while it has elements similar to Animal Crossing, the core gameplay is entirely different.

Create the farm of your dreams in this royally sweet fantasy sim

There are over 1500+ décor items, ranging from plant pots to lookout towers, lampposts to phone boxes. Some of the décor is out of keeping with a garden though, for instance, beds and bookcases. The only control options are around sound levels. The music is pleasant enough, but without the special effects ‘ring’, it would get repetitive. Conclusion In its style and presentation, Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island is aimed at a young princess-type gamer. I don’t fit that description, but I still enjoyed my time on Carrot Isle. It’s a stress-free dip in and out of the game, which is bright, colourful and full of sweetness. Excluding decorating time, it takes around 10 hours to reach level 15. Of course, you can play for as long as you like. With décor to match every season, there are many reasons to keep playing and decorating your Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island. Challenges Who doesn’t like a challenge?