Slime Rancher Review

"Farmin' Slimes"

Campaign

Slime Rancher is an absolutely adorable farming game where you head out to the far reaches of space in order to harvest slimes. It's just a fun, charming game that allows you to casually sit back to collect slimes. You suck these bouncy creatures into your bag of sorts and then place them in cages (enclosures, whatever's humane I suppose).

Once they're put safely in place you feed them a variety of fruits, vegetables or meats to have them spit out special little items called plorts. These plorts are then used on a market for money and you can take that money to spend however you'd like.

This can be on improving the enclosures with things to keep slimes safe or to feed them and increasing the size of your ranch. The game features a large and open area that you're free to explore and multiple areas to unlock with keys or money.

There's a sort of focus to things, but mainly the fun of it is just building upon your empire. It's quite a time sink in that you could literally play this forever without getting bored. It might seem somewhat repetitive to some I suppose, but there's just such a varied amount of depth to it that I found ever so engaging.

Gameplay

With that depth there are a pile of slimes and then mutations of slimes to collect. There are multiple food types to either grow on plots or as livestock. The slimes all have some unique properties and their smiles are enchanting. The enclosures can be enhanced with higher walls, protective barriers and some automated features. The core player can also get upgrades to hold more items at once, to sprint and to fly around.

You can also take money to buy new areas such as a poorly lit cave, open ranchlands and a special barn as examples. The space to play in is rather large and filled with smaller secrets to discover as you explore. You do get a Slimepedia to use and it provides enough information for you to understand what's going on. Slime Rancher is also pleasant to look at bringing a bright range of colors, fluid gameplay and multiple slimes to watch out for. Not all of the creatures are friendly and your slimes may not always be safe.

The Conclusion

Slime Rancher is once again, adorable and so much fun to play as you just waste hours away tending to the slimes. It's got a ton of the depth to it with multiple variants to collect, things to do and areas to progress.

The farming aspect was well handled and it feels familiar, yet completely unique to other games out there. I loved the vibrant use of color the smiling faces of the creatures that I cared for. Few games are this enjoyable and there's enough complexity to it for the game to always be interesting.

Slime Rancher Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Monomi Park

Rating Overall: 9.0