Game Review: The Little Acre (Xbox One)

The Little Acre is a throwback to the point & click/adventure games of the 90’s. The kind of game (if you’re my age) that harks back to a childhood filled with wonder. However, beautifully hand-drawn visuals, great music & a stellar voice cast can’t save it from the lack of substance in the gameplay & story.

You take on the role of Aiden & his young daughter, Lily in 1950’s Ireland. Aiden’s father disappeared a while back & he’s been trying to get along with life ever since. Also while also trying to uncover the mystery behind his disappearance.

Waking up in their small cottage, the early parts of the game involve exploring the house & the surrounding area. All while completing simple, very simple point & click puzzles. It’s here that both the good & bad of The Little Acre is showcased.

The gorgeous backgrounds & well drawn characters instantly capture the imagination & the location makes you want to explore & interact with everything. However, the gameplay is so simple, so straight-forward that it is borderline boring. Being the beginning of the game, it could be excused but as you get deeper into the game it doesn’t get any tougher.

While this does allow the story to flow & stops any potential frustration setting in, the ease in which you can breeze through the game stops in being truly memorable.

What The Little Acre does have is a bag load of charm. Lily is adorable & playing as her is often the highlight of the game. Her innocent outlook & perspective makes for a much more amusing experience as do the cute characters & interesting villain.

Being more of a PC game the controls can be hit & miss. The point & click elements are fine but the movement seems better suited to a mouse & keyboard. It can be slow to move about but thankfully the game doesn’t call for much of that.

With a simple inventory system, easy to find quest items & clear pathways forward The Little Acre is still a lot of fun regardless of how quickly it can be completed. You can wrap this up within two hours but it’s well paced so that will fly by in even quicker time.

A nostalgic rush more than anything, the gorgeous visuals, great voice acting & decent story makes it a worthwhile play.