Game Review: Slime Rancher (Xbox One)

Slime Rancher is a first-person life simulator/farm management game, developed and published by Monomi Park. It was released on August 1st 2017 and is now available on all major consoles.

In it, players take on the role of Beatrix LeBeau. A rancher who leaves Earth to go to the planet called ‘Far Far Ranch’. There, it’s the players job to turn her into a successful ‘slime rancher’. By exploring the large world, collecting slimes, caring for and feeding them. In return they’ll produce ‘plorts’ which can then be sold at the market. The money used to improve the ranch and unlock upgrades.

Deceptively simple, slimes are in abundance on this planet and collecting them is as easy as sucking them up into Beatrix’s ‘VacPac’ where they are stored. Of course they can’t stay in there, so players must build enclosures for slimes to live in. Simple homes that can be upgraded in a number of ways to make your life in Slime Rancher easier.

Once you’ve got a healthy farm of slimes the work isn’t quite done. It’s just getting started as the slimes will require food, something that can be gathered while exploring the world or grown at the farm. Certain slime types require certain food and you have limited plots to grow on so balancing your slimes needs and ensuring a happy home is where things gets tougher.

There are many varieties of slimes and each type behaves differently. There are some types that can’t be out in the sun. Another that can only live in water. Another that is aggressive to the player if they come close and so on. However, tougher, more inhospitable ones are worth capturing and placing in your farm as they often produce the best types of plorts.

The main currency of the game, slimes produce plorts after they’ve eaten and this can be sucked up by the player and sold at the market. Basic pink slime plorts won’t gain you much but more complex plorts will really see the money pile grow. Not only that but you can feed different plorts to different slimes to create bigger variations of your slimes too. These ones now producing two different types of plorts meaning the player gets more bang for your buck.

However, be careful that they don’t eat two different plorts otherwise they’ll transform into a ‘Tarr’. An evil black slime that will devour all others it comes across.

Money can also be earned by completely timed quests. Sent to the player by AI characters. they always consist of the player being asked to give a certain number of a certain type of food, slimes, plorts etc.

As stated above plorts are exchanged for money. Which is spent on upgrading farm buildings but it’s also used to upgrade the players’ equipment. As well as unlocking new areas of the farm and its general aesthetics. You’ll be be constantly farming, spending and collecting. With world exploration almost taking a backseat.

Going out into the massive world is an adventure and you can easily spend the games day and night cycle just exploring the surrounding lands. It’s easy to get lost and while there is a map, it’s certainly not the best one. Teleporters that can be found and unlocked so make life easier though.

If all of this sounds like fun it’s because it is. Not only that it’s really addictive. It’s easy to lose hours of your life to the game where all you’re doing is caring for your slimes and harvesting their plorts!