Fantasy Zoo [Review]
Fantasy Zoo was a game I was hopeful about and really wanted to like. The idea of a fantasy-themed zoo sim has a lot of unrealized potential. While the thought is great, the game itself feels half-baked and unfinished, more like a rough alpha than a fully released game.
The game is too simple, with almost no story or explanation provided. So for whatever reason, I was in a fantasy world and needed to build a zoo. I was given options to build the world, like how much foliage I wanted, what type of terrain it was, and so forth. Thought was even given to players wanting a chillier experience, with options for unlimited money and starting with everything unlocked. While there are some good ideas present, their clumsy execution manages to hamper the whole experience.
Fantasy Zoo feels unpolished and rough around the edges. The graphics look unprofessional, with the menus being written in Times New Roman font on a colored background inside a square. I found the text too small and difficult to read. There are both too many menus and a lack of organization within the menus that exist. Finding a necessary object in this jumbled mess is an absolute slog. Further compounding this is how little explanation exists to explain the gameplay systems. The tutorial is about five minutes long and leaves most of the game unexplained. How to take care of guests and the magic system isn't even touched on. While it presents itself as a standard management game, there are systems that remain a mystery to me even now, which is a problem when I need to explain said systems to my readers. For example, my fantasy critters needed water, something I wasn't even aware of until I was notified, and even then, I had no idea how to water my creatures. Did I put water terrain in the exhibit? Put in a small lake? Or a water bowl? There was a lot of unnecessary trial and error with no obvious answers. Even more frustrating was the research menu – a core part of the game – and its inability to open properly. It opened in a partial window view, obstructing both my ability to see the options and to interact with them.
This is clearly a passion project, and there are good ideas on display here. Each creature is lovingly crafted to be unique, with specific needs that must be met. For example, unicorns prefer to be alone, and putting more than one in an enclosure tanks their happiness. Other monsters are naturally aggressive and will attack each other without a training dummy. I loved my monsters, and I genuinely enjoyed looking at them. In the end, though, it feels like there was a vision here, but the developer couldn’t quite bring it to life. Rather than keep working on it, it feels very much like they just gave up halfway and decided to release it as is.
Which is disappointing because I desperately want a fantasy creature zoo sim to build the magical creature zoo of my dreams. I feel like with the right team and direction, what the creator wanted could have happened. Instead, though, Fantasy Zoo is a great idea that ultimately falls short with a failed final product.
