Grow Home

 PlayStation 4
  • Publisher: Ubisoft
  • Release Date: Sep 1, 2015
  • Also On: PC
User Score
6.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 168 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 60 out of 168
  2. Mixed: 64 out of 168
  3. Negative: 44 out of 168

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  1. Dal_ReviewedDat
    Sep 7, 2015
    3
    Free with September PS+

    Thank god. This game is hideous to play. As a physics based game, the controls leave you feeling constantly struggling and with very little reward for getting somewhere other than a cubic flower springing up, it's not worth my efforts. Original doesn't mean good. If you want a fun physics based game, see "Rocket League" and have fun instead of a few    Free with September PS+

    Thank god.

    This game is hideous to play. As a physics based game, the controls leave you feeling constantly struggling and with very little reward for getting somewhere other than a cubic flower springing up, it's not worth my efforts.

    Original doesn't mean good. If you want a fun physics based game, see "Rocket League" and have fun instead of a few hours of thinking 'meh' before un-installing Grow Home forever.    … Expand
  2. boogiesmeister
    Sep 6, 2015
    4
    I'd give this game a 6, but it gets -1 for uplay nonsense & -1 for horrible performance on ps4 (fps drops a lot), despite very simplistic graphics. This game is only worth it if you get it for free in psn+ or if you have a 5y old at your home. Otherwise dont bother.
    The game has some cute concepts and with few improvements it could be played by adults "for relax", but very simplistic    I'd give this game a 6, but it gets -1 for uplay nonsense & -1 for horrible performance on ps4 (fps drops a lot), despite very simplistic graphics. This game is only worth it if you get it for free in psn+ or if you have a 5y old at your home. Otherwise dont bother.
    The game has some cute concepts and with few improvements it could be played by adults "for relax", but very simplistic gameplay & outright boring setting (despite what trailer suggests, there is only one music soundtrack & it's very boring) is smth that kills this game. Not recommended.    … Expand
  3. rdekoch
    Sep 3, 2015
    3
    I quickly gave up. Controlling the robot is not fun. The camera is awful. I couldn't tell what the hell was going on. The trailer looks so polished, but the game I played looked like it was running on an n64. There are so many great downloadable titles out there and this ain't one of them.
  4. Tirah
    Sep 15, 2015
    2
    When I found out we'd be getting this game for free on PS+, I had high hopes for it to be good. What I got was a clunky mess following in the footsteps of Surgeon Simulator and other oh-so-hilarious wacky physics-based games.
    The main character, a robot named B.U.D., controls terribly. I don't know whether it's supposed to be funny or cute, but I was really annoyed by it. You spend 90% of    When I found out we'd be getting this game for free on PS+, I had high hopes for it to be good. What I got was a clunky mess following in the footsteps of Surgeon Simulator and other oh-so-hilarious wacky physics-based games.
    The main character, a robot named B.U.D., controls terribly. I don't know whether it's supposed to be funny or cute, but I was really annoyed by it. You spend 90% of the game climbing very, very slowly on various surfaces. You do so by repeatedly pressing the shoulder buttons. Right for right hand, left for left hand. Press the button to grab an object or hold onto a wall, release the button to let go. Sounds cool in concept, but in reality it's tedious and it makes my hands hurt after mere 20 minutes of gameplay.
    I don't like the art design of GH, so I'm not gonna criticize it. What I WILL criticize, however, is the terrible screen tearing whenever you move the camera around, and framerate drops.
    The worst thing is the sound design. B.U.D. makes the most annoying sounds you can imagine, especially when jumping. The background music is okay and would be pretty relaxing, if the gameplay wasn't so boring that it immediatelly puts you in a bad mood.
    I wanted to like the game, I really did. After all, Ubisoft has a history of producing some of the best platformers ever made.
    Unfortunately, Grow Home is not the next Rayman or Beyond Good & Evil. The only positive thing is, I didn't have to pay for this. Otherwise I'd be REALLY disappointed.    … Expand
  5. Bertoflyingfox
    Sep 16, 2015
    4
    This just isnt my type of game. Very frustrating in an unchallenging way. The physics left a lot to be desired and constantly having to push shoulder buttons to climb around was the worst kind of monotony I could e̶n̶j̶o̶y̶ endure in a videogame.
    All for a very short campaign with no replay value. Meh.
  6. thunderclast
    Sep 3, 2015
    2
    Incredibly bad game. The controls are terribly sloppy. You might expect your little gardening robot to handle like a robot: precisely and predictably. Not so. Your character moves around like a 20 ton octopus slathered in petroleum jelly. Momentum is hard to get going and even harder to stop. This will result in you falling off ledges for no good reason. Often.

    Aside from the general    Incredibly bad game. The controls are terribly sloppy. You might expect your little gardening robot to handle like a robot: precisely and predictably. Not so. Your character moves around like a 20 ton octopus slathered in petroleum jelly. Momentum is hard to get going and even harder to stop. This will result in you falling off ledges for no good reason. Often.

    Aside from the general awfulness of the controls, the developers have also omitted the option to invert the camera controls' x-axis. When you click "invert camera controls," it inverts only the y-axis, which is incredibly frustrating, unless you're one of the two dozen people in the world who play flight sims.

    Yes, I just dedicated a whole paragraph to the importance of being able to invert both camera axes. And here's another, especially for the developers:

    IN A THIRD PERSON GAME, THE RIGHT STICK CONTROLS THE CAMERA. WHEN I PRESS RIGHT, THE CAMERA SHOULD MOVE RIGHT. WHEN I PRESS UP, THE CAMERA SHOULD MOVE UP. GET THE PICTURE?

    At least give me the option, for crying out loud. It can't be that hard to code.

    Aside from my gripes about the controls, there are also the graphics to complain about. The untextured simple polygons that make up every object in this game look like they came from 1995. I'm talking Star Fox 64 graphics here. Which is apparently too much for this game to handle, considering all the screen tearing.

    Moving on to game play: it's pretty boring and repetitive. There's no real story to speak of. The exploration is sort of fun, and the general concept of the game is creative. That kept me playing for a while, but not for too long.

    Over all, the concept of this game is good, but it would be difficult for the execution to be worse. I'm awarding 2 points for sheer creativity.    … Expand
  7. mdhayes3
    Sep 4, 2015
    3
    I voted for Grow Home for PS Plus, because it looked liked a game I would enjoy and I like the unique and clever idea of the game. I played it for about 2 hours and I'm disappointed I voted for it.
    The game is about climbing up a giant plant to make it back to your ship, but the climbing mechanics are AWFUL! Why make a game about climbing when you can't get the main aspect of the game    I voted for Grow Home for PS Plus, because it looked liked a game I would enjoy and I like the unique and clever idea of the game. I played it for about 2 hours and I'm disappointed I voted for it.
    The game is about climbing up a giant plant to make it back to your ship, but the climbing mechanics are AWFUL! Why make a game about climbing when you can't get the main aspect of the game to work well. It's terrible sloppy and unresponsive, which leads to frustrating gameplay. I wanted to like this game, but it just doesn't work and wasn't a fun experience.    … Expand
  8. romanontherun
    Sep 4, 2015
    4
    thanks voters.
    it's clunky to control, have no story and almost no challenge.

    and now i'll have to buy Zomibe Vikings on my own (who in his right mind would not vote for zombie vikings?! they zombie and a f**cking vikings for gods sake!)
  9. pypes
    Nov 4, 2015
    3
    I'd seen this on steam and thought it looked interesting, however I am allergic to giving money to ubisoft so I declined to buy it. So you can imagine how pleased I was when it turned up on PS Plus for "free"

    You play as a robot called BUD (or stumbles as I have named him) and your goal is to induce a giant "star plant" (Latin: phalicus homoeroticus) by clambering all over it until you    I'd seen this on steam and thought it looked interesting, however I am allergic to giving money to ubisoft so I declined to buy it. So you can imagine how pleased I was when it turned up on PS Plus for "free"

    You play as a robot called BUD (or stumbles as I have named him) and your goal is to induce a giant "star plant" (Latin: phalicus homoeroticus) by clambering all over it until you find it's purple headed sprouts, then sitting astride the expanding vine and guiding them until they roughly penetrate the glowing space rocks. Or in other words you clime a great big vine and visit some floating islands.

    The premise is quite interesting, however the execution is very poor. Stumbles controls like a toddler; running everywhere at full speed whilst having no means of stopping, and 90% of the game is either spend climbing or dragging stuff. Climbing works by mashing the shoulder buttons a-la shadow of the colossus, only with absolutely no sense (or means) of urgency and it's incredibly tedious, this is your primary means of locomotion for a significant fraction of the game. Dragging stuff back to the scanner is just as tedious, pretty much everything that needs dragging is near the limit of what our robotic hero can physically manage, thus a trip of few meters takes seemingly an age and will be thwarted by a gentle slope.

    All this could be overlooked if it weren't for one glaring problem; there is bugger all to do in this game. Hazards with the exception of falling and the tedium of climbing back up are few and far between. There are crystal to collect, which grant you better ways to move around, but they are numerous and the hard to reach ones are no more rewarding than the myriad just scattered in your path. The graphics are fine, but there are no sweeping vistas to reward a difficult climb. There are numerous tiny islands to visit, each identical to the last, and the whole premise of growing a plant to an arbitrary height wears thin quickly.

    They should of called it "spastic robot simulator" and marketed as a comedy game similar to octodad.    … Expand
  10. Astrumuni
    Nov 18, 2015
    4
    Climb a stem, find a sprout, start it growing up. Repeat 100 times. That's all the gameplay could offer.
    Sometimes you'll fall from far above the ground, so be prepared to start you climb from the very beginning.
    There is no story behind so I seriously doubt there is a point to even start this game. As if that wasn't enough the controls are very clumsy - your robot acts like a drunken    Climb a stem, find a sprout, start it growing up. Repeat 100 times. That's all the gameplay could offer.
    Sometimes you'll fall from far above the ground, so be prepared to start you climb from the very beginning.
    There is no story behind so I seriously doubt there is a point to even start this game.
    As if that wasn't enough the controls are very clumsy - your robot acts like a drunken octopus.
    The only good thing is animals design: low polygonal sheeps and birds are pretty cute.    … Expand
  11. fandango89
    May 5, 2016
    3
    Boring, repetitive, no clear objective, goals, or directions. Easy to get lost and wonder what you're even supposed to do. Climbing/gripping/walking controls are finicky and un-intuitive. If you enjoy just senselessly wandering around this is the game for you.
  12. Nel
    Dec 21, 2016
    4
    Really short game, the controls are fine, almost no existing story. It will only take you a few hours to complete I do not recommend buying this game at full price. Fairly few things to do, even though it has several things that are unique about it, it's still nothing special
  13. YukaiFA
    Jun 18, 2018
    4
    Very frustrating game. It's challenging and I don't think it's all by design. The controls are very clunky and it seems to take forever to climb each section. Timing jumps is also out of the question - I'm not the most elite gamer but even I was surprised at how many times I would mis-time a jump only to see my guy fall the equivalent of 100 floors to his death.

    Falling frequently    Very frustrating game. It's challenging and I don't think it's all by design. The controls are very clunky and it seems to take forever to climb each section. Timing jumps is also out of the question - I'm not the most elite gamer but even I was surprised at how many times I would mis-time a jump only to see my guy fall the equivalent of 100 floors to his death.

    Falling frequently wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the extremely long climb back up to the top. Yes I'm aware they have some fast travel points but really, come on, it's ridiculous. I tried to stick with this for a while, I really did, but in the end I couldn't take the blocky bastard anymore and gave it up.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

63
#63 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
74

Mixed or average reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. PSNStores
    Oct 29, 2015
    90
    There’s a lot to like about Grow Home, especially if you’re into exploration games with a unique aesthetic.
    Read full review
  2. Playstation Official Magazine Australia
    Oct 16, 2015
    70
    Although completable in a single sitting, Grow Home is just as long as it needs to be without overstaying its welcome. [December 2015, p70]
  3. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Oct 10, 2015
    70
    A charming, if insubstantial freeform exploration game that feels refreshingly open thanks to your intuitive climbing skills. It's almost guaranteed to, ahem, grow on you. [Nov 2015, p.98]
See all critic reviews »