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Do I want to give this game a bad review? Absolutely not. I love the visuals, the cute dinosaurs, the vibrant and eye-catching color the entire world has. I've had SO much fun. You can see how much time I've put into this game. But still...
Am I going to give this game a bad review? Yes. Despite the fun I've had, if someone looked me in the eyes and asked me, would I recommend this title to them? I couldn't. Not with the game as it is now. Not with how much it costs. This can change depending on just how much support the developers want to give this title as time goes on, but right now? No, there's titles y'all are better off playing instead. Paleo Pines' only draw is its dinosaurs, but if those don't pull you in.... Absolutely nothing else will.
TL;dr - For what you're paying, you're getting very little. Only play this if you love dinosaurs and ARK isn't giving you the cutesy cozy vibes you want from said dinosaurs.
Pros:
+ VISUALS. The only aspect of this game that truly feels like there was any love and thought put into it. Dinosaurs are amazing, as I've already said. The game is super nice to look at, at all hours of the day. (Night time might be just a bit too dark though, and with the VERY limited display settings, that might annoy some people.)
+ USEFUL DINOSAURS. Every dinosaur you befriend for your farm comes with a couple skills that make life on said farm easier. I especially love my stompy Carnotaurus and speedy Baryonyx. This game was 100% built around dinosaurs being your main tools around the farm, and I love that. There's just one sticking point with this and I'll elaborate in the cons section.
+ RARE SKINS. The vast majority of my time in this game was spent 'shiny hunting' for ultra rare dinosaur colors. It was a bit undermined when a certain festival basically gifted me an all-black Carnotaurus within my first ten hours of play time, but the other dinos I found were found legitimately, and it was an actual rush each time I saw them in the wild. I absolutely love that this is a thing in the game, though I really wish that the Ultra Rares amounted to more than just 'Albino' or 'Melanistic' for like 80% of the dinosaurs.
Cons:
- PRICE. I paid less for this title because I got it basically at launch. But... $30? That's a hard price point to sell this thing on. The lack of content in this game makes itself very apparent, very quickly. By the end of the game's first month (There's only three in the game.), I was already running out of things to do, and that's not very good when the developers are wanting half the price of a AAA title for their game.
- SHALLOW CHARACTERS. Aside from the dinosaurs, you aren't going to be playing this for the characters. There is no meaningful development as far as I've seen, and I've been playing for over 60 hours. You start off friendly with the villagers, you end things friendly with them. Developers say they do not plan on adding a romance aspect to the game either, so already, that's one big feature that most people look for in these types of games gone. Sure, the lack of it isn't a deal breaker for some, but in a game that's already starving for content, this isn't helping things.
- CLUNKY UI AND CONTROLS. Who on the development team decided that by default, we only have 12 slots in our inventory? Who added onto that then that the only expansion for your inventory only occurs once (to my knowledge, I've only done it once), and it only adds 4 slots? To a game where your own tools like your journal take up space? I just want to talk to them. Also, some dinos' controls and handling is a real chore to work around. Traversing the map on some of the bigger dinosaurs is laughably slow, and there are MANY arbitrary barriers on the map that stop you from going where you want to. Want to climb up or down a very slight hill somewhere in any of the zones? Oh, no, you can't. Walk around it instead in your slow as molasses Styracosaurus, please. Also, no jump button, game? Really? I have SO much to say about this, but this review is already an essay. Oh, but I could go on ALL DAY.
- UNDERCOOKED PROGRESSION. Might be a nitpick of mine, but outside of unlocking abilities through more dinosaurs in your roster, you never really 'feel' as if you're getting any more efficient as a farmer, even as your dinosaurs gain levels. Sure, their stamina bars might get bigger, but Sprinter dinosaurs don't get any faster, Waterer dinosaurs do not water more squares than they do from the start, and Stomper/Smasher dinosaurs do not see any increase in strength, since all obstacles only take the skill itself for them to break. Befriending your dinosaur only consists of bribing them just enough to convince them to let you put a saddle on them, but there isn't anything more to it. Oh, and you can't change these skills. For example, if your favorite dinosaur of all time is a Rex, but you aren't a fan of how slow it moves, you're out of luck. You're forced to use something else that can actually move, instead of your favorite.
- DREAMSTONES. I only include this because it irks me so much that in a game about making friends with all the dinosaurs, you realistically can only have a few dozen on your farm. I believe there's only enough dreamstones on the maps combined for about one of each type? What if you want a herd or something? Guess you're up a creek without a paddle, then. Yes, there is an NPC you can go to to 'track down' the dinosaurs you release into the wild should you want to see them again, but it's not the same.