Top Down (prod. dk + angelsuffers) by Cozy Solo (2024)

Thank you for talking about this!!

My biggest gripe with "cozy games" is the toxic positivity surrounding them. You're never allowed to criticize a cozy game without facing a ton of backlash, no matter how justified your criticisms are.

Now I will say, I think Palia absolutely sucks. For context, I played Palia for one week (ended the week today). It started out as a mildly interesting beta for a cozy-game-to-be, then swiftly turned into an anxiety-inducing, angering grind fest with little rewards and few things to do. The community aspect of the game (as it is an MMO) is, by far, the worst aspect of it. You are FORCED to play this game with strangers; the devs claim you can "play solo", but unless you want to get mass-reported by sweats after you mined a rock they wanted, you really cannot play by yourself. Resources are so limited it's almost impossible to play solo unless you want to waste HOURS farming resources, only to make minimal progress. Not only that, but the developers are not being transparent about their roadmap for the game's future, and they let their community run rampant, spreading nothing but toxic positivity (aka pure hatred). The Discord and Reddit for Palia are a toxic mess (not that I blame the devs for social media). When that toxicity crosses over into the game itself, then I have a problem. I seriously think this game would be better as a single-player game. I'm thinking of uninstalling it after this one week of playing it, which is a shame because I do like some of the NPCs; though, as some people have started to point out, the NPCs reinforce some really... iffy stereotypes.

I think the coziest games let players just... play the game. I consider many Mario games to be "cozy" just because they're cute and fun and I can play at my own pace. I don't need to wait 3 days to harvest a super star in Super Mario Galaxy 2; I can just hop on and play at my pace. If I want to grind in a game, then I should be allowed to grind--that's what makes ACNH so fun (yay time-traveling!). Even Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are "cozy" to me because I can do whatever I effing want to do at any time I want to do it!! I don't care if I have to sneak around monsters because I LIKE the challenge, but I can also just walk around and absorb the scenery and I can cook a bunch of stuff if I want to! Hell, even Skyrim is cozy to me.

Basically, what I've taken from this video (and what I've taken from my own personal experience), is that when a game prioritizes "coziness" over the game itself, it simply will not work out. I love cozy games; I fell in love with ACNL and Tale of Two Towns back in the day, and even now I look back on those memories with fondness. But those games were truly cozy because they were enjoyable. Coziness should simply be an inherent trait of the game itself--NOT the priority.

I have to disagree with these takes.

1. TEMTEM sold 1 Million Copies and is likely still selling (Look at Gym Leader Ed's Channel if you're interested)

2. Pokemon wasn't the 1st japanese game that allowed gamers to recruit creatures, train them and use them to battle other creatures. The Megami Tensei/Shin Megami Tensei Franchise (1987) came before Pokemon, so you could say Pokemon is a clone.

3. During the 2010's Pokemon Fans have been critiquing Pokemon for being stagnant and for rushing games with less content and fan favorite features than the previous Pokemon Games for years. The Publishers/Developers have been ignoring critical fans for years now and the Pokemon Fandom have been suppressing other Pokemon Fans Criticisms, telling them to go somewhere else if they don't like the newer Pokemon Games.

4. Other Developers (Crema) noticed the older Pokemon Fans Criticisms and made a game for them, when The Publisher/Developers/Pokemon Fandom didn't want to here their criticisms. So Crema made TEMTEM that was for Pokemon Fans that wanted an Official PokeMMO like game because GameFreak didn't want to make it.

5. I would argue TEMTEM is different, since it's an MMO lite w/ Coop, House Customization, Character Customization, Creatures Following You Feature, Post Game Battle Facility (Battle Frontier Like), Battle Simulator (Pokemon Showdown), Arcade (Game Corner Like), Official Online Multiplayer Tournaments and More that people strangely seem to leave out for whatever reason when talking negatively about TEMTEM... Things that Pokemon hasn't done or hasn't brought back all in a single game. LASTLY, I don't think it was targeting the "WHOLE Pokemon Fandom" but the "PokeMMO Fandom". Another part of the Pokemon community that seems to get left out of the conversation. T_T

Respectfully, having watched the video, here are some examples of titles I think would suit it better:

-What makes a game cozy?
-The Cozy Game Boom (and the problems it's creating)
-What are most new cozy games lacking?
-Many new cozy games are missing the point...

If you're criticizing game developers for creating games with profit instead of authenticity in mind (which is very valid), I would hold that you should also choose titles for accuracy to your message, rather than what might get more people to rage-click your video and net you a few extra views. Just phrasing it as a question isn't a perfect loophole to writing a title that misleads people from what you're actually trying to say.

That being said, this is meant as constructive criticism; as for the video's overall content, I pretty much agree with you, although I expect this is a natural phenomenon that's just going to dwindle away on its own once cozy games are no longer the "trend." Devs who deeply care about the genre will always keep creating high-quality, fun-to-play games, you just have to look a little harder currently to find them through the flood of hypetrain games.

@@cherrytries2922 If the devs feared that, they are so far disconnected from their player base any way that my point still stands. No active gamer has demanded anything like that. In fact, gamers often shout at how AAA companies abuse their devs time and workload. It's been a huge thing for years, so I disagree to a point. They were shouting this BEFORE the game even came out. There was no real standard cause we had no idea what the game was gonna be like (EA means little and no one expects things to stay the same from them.) What we, consumers DID know, was that it was going to be a complete game (narratively, beginning, middle, end) with no pay to wins, no micro transactions, no bull crap shoveling at us, just a completed game with as few bugs as possible by a company who LOVES it. (And with the bugs it did have, Larian has been working hard with breaks to fix in a timely manner). I do not think it impossible for AAA companies (who's CEOs and art designers commented in fear of BG3s attention as well) to not be able to shove just a LITTLE of their millions of dollars to at least COMPLETE a game, maybe even stop a micro transaction or two.

Literally all the people expect is a finished product that won't cost 70-80 dollars and we haven't gotten that out of any big name in years. Most of the player base don't care that we can see the peach fuzz on Alloys cheek we just want a good game.

There was no love in the saints row reboot. Square enix is milking a huge cow with one IP and and releasing half baked, completely unplayable games to the side (Forespoken, Balan, whatever that Wild title was, forgive me I didn't even attempt to play that one so I can't remember.)

Blizzard should be absolutely shut down. Diablo is so bad with their BS scam with the battle pass. It's things like that.

I wouldn't be so chapped about the "anomaly" complaint if it wasn't a ton of AAA big shots standing behind it telling us, the consumer, to lower our standards cause they can't be bothered lol. I get there's a balance to the finance side, but no one can tell me they give a crap about what they are doing more than just doing their job at a company they probably don't even care for themselves.

You won't believe how upset I've gotten over this before, and I'm not even a goddamn pokemon fan lmao
There's so much potential in the world. Pokemon snap is a great example of leveraging the fact you have an entire goddamn roster of cute creatures, but I always thought you could go further.

Simulation/Management games are an easy place to start, since you're basically doing "Theme Hospital but you also hire/treat Pokémon", and other reskins/reinterpretations of other management sims to throw in Pokemon shaped curveballs. the Pokemon construction crew manager game, the pokemon hospital manager game, the pokemon theme park manager game, etc.

then you get your adventure games. Imagine exploring ruins with a dedicated team of pokemon characters in some sort of puzzle/platformer.

I'm gonna stop here becuase I'm kinda stalling on ideas but you get the point I'm making here.