The Good Life (Xbox Series X)
The small town of Rainy Woods calls itself the happiest town in the world, and it’s not hard to see why. Set in the idyllic English countryside with residents so friendly they’ll gift someone a house with no strings attached just to make sure they’ve got somewhere comfortable to stay, this humble village likely sounds like the good life to many people. However, in the odd mix of life simulator and adventure game that is The Good Life, Naomi Hayward finds herself in this small town and can’t help but constantly describe it as a “goddamn hellhole”.
To be fair to the journalist from New York City, the reason she finds herself in Rainy Woods isn’t the best. 30 million pounds in debt, the reporter is sent by her newspaper in the states to try and investigate why the town claims to be such a paradise. Quite quickly though some unusual secrets are revealed, the game wasting no time in revealing that the people of Rainy Woods will transform into dogs and cats on certain nights. Before Naomi can look too much deeper into this though, she ends up finding a person murdered in a peculiar manner, and soon she’s pursuing leads on that instead and running into even greater oddities than a shapeshifting populace. Funnily enough though, on its surface, Rainy Woods is mostly a pretty humble town. The area around is quite beautiful at times, a mix of old-fashioned buildings and natural spaces that look quite lovely in the game’s unique art style. Many of the residents are only a bit off-kilter, some quirky trait making them more interesting than just another face in the crowd but everyone gets along during their normal lives without much fuss. The carpenter may dress in a suit of armor and talk like a knight, but he still goes about town and does his job. The bartender dresses in punk rock fashion, but it’s just her chosen style. Even the witch on the edge of the town just seems more like a woman who sells homeopathic medicine most of the time, but as Naomi investigates deeper into the goings-on around the area, she will begin to rub more and more against abnormal and supernatural situations that pique your curiosity and often delve into the humorously absurd.
Naomi is a bit of an interesting protagonist, because while her dislike for the countryside certainly comes from living an urban life so far, she’s never fully disavowed of her somewhat selfish mindset. Needing to clear that debt means she’ll always leap at the chance to make money, sometimes contriving a little scheme that isn’t always the nicest thing to do. When confronted with Naomi’s unabashed self-interest though, some of the characters she comes across can be broken out of their usual kindly behavior, the scene devolving into an amusing interaction as people end up less beholden to societal expectations and their usual manners. When the chips are down she’s not an awful person, but she’s no bleeding heart and her interactions with people become more fascinating because their path isn’t so clear cut, but it can certainly limit her likeability at other junctures. Not all her whining is unjustified either, and while she’s not one afraid to share her feelings, there are moments she can let a moment stand without having to tear it down. You are given some decent opposition as well where her grousing is more justified, a rival reporter named Daniel Miller popping up to rile Naomi up yet even his unusual character becomes endearing and soon you’ll be happily anticipating his unusual cry of “LOBSTAH!” whenever he shows up.
The Good Life’s story follows Naomi’s investigations around Rainy Woods but quite quickly that process splits the plot into three different routes, the player able to choose which quest they wish to pursue and swap between the three routes as they see fit. These are all related to investigating different aspects of the murder and are definitely where the game is at its finest, constantly introducing different entertaining situations or giving you some time to engage with the mechanics that tie to the life sim element of the game. During your day to day life as Naomi you are free to pursue whatever interests you, whether that is going out into the vast open countryside to find interesting areas to explore, interacting with the townspeople to assume side quests they need help with, or focus on your personal improvement like upgrading your house or garden. There is quite a lot of attention giving to the elements of The Good Life’s design that aren’t pressing demands and aren’t even necessary to finish the game’s story. You can find materials to trade in for new clothes, you can take photos around the town and try to match trending topics on the social media site Flamingo for some income, you can go mining, grow crops, capture sheep for use as a steed to travel places more quickly, and a good deal more with the plot sometimes only briefly brushing across these mechanics when they suit its needs. In some ways this can make the plot feel like it’s giving you a taste of these activities before you can do them at your own discretion, but a lot of them are there mostly for intrinsic enjoyment rather than extrinsic rewards and only need to be given the attention you believe they’re due.
Funnily enough, while there are survival mechanics in The Good Life, they barely feel like they’re much to be worried about. Naomi will get hungry, but early on its not difficult to grow enough potatoes in your garden that you can always cook up a quick and easy jacket potato to fill your stomach any time it’s necessary. Things like losing health to angry wildlife, getting a cold from being out in the rain, or getting stressed by certain activities can require a bit more of an involved response and one that might cost a little cash to solve, but they are also easily overcome and then you can get back to what you would like to be doing. However, The Good Life does try to encourage making a bit more out of this routine self-care. Side quests or extra features can motivate you to make a meal something more than just another jacket potato at home. Eat enough of a meal at a food place and you can learn the recipe, or maybe a side quest will ask you to diversify the kinds of things you intake before it gives you the small pay out for taking the time to branch out. Again, The Good Life is trying to nudge you towards engaging with its systems, but some side quests can go a bit overboard. Shrine quests in particular are egregious about this, the shrines you can use to teleport around the countryside also providing quests that usually take the form of doing something enough times. These checklist style quests can be offered by citizens of the town as well and if you take the time to immediately address them they’d be rather dull, but luckily you can often just make some deviations now and then while on your normal schedule to try and gradually accrue the credit for these side activities.
This isn’t true of all of them unfortunately. Some like having the sheep you can ride about smash through 100 objects can take a considerable amount of time when you’re lucky to even find four clustered together and even then they’ll be the only breakable barrels for quite a stretch of land. Some side quests won’t give you credit for doing an action unless you have that quest flagged as your current quest of focus, so making a meat pie recipe a guy wants you to try won’t count if you don’t have it marked properly. Sometimes this flagging system makes sense as it is the way the game will have certain characters where they need to be, but it can also mean you stumble across that person in town, activate the quest to try and move it along, and that person disappears before your eyes as they teleport off to wherever that side quest’s plot demands they be. Some side quests do a better job of providing interesting activities, drinking contests with the vicar letting you play a minigame you don’t spend too long with in the story so it has more room to get difficult in the optional contests. A few have actual little narratives to them, either exploring more about an interesting side character or the relationships between people in town, but there are a lot that are fetch quests, and oddly enough the game knows this.
Naomi is remarkably self-aware about how some of the things she’s told to do are the kinds of activities characters in RPGs and video games engage in often. She doesn’t directly acknowledge she’s in a game, but she points out the video game trappings mostly so she can bemoan them, even when the task isn’t really that bad to engage with. A cheeky narrator is a bit more willing to break the fourth wall though, his lines always voiced when the rest of the cast varies in how often they speak. The narrator is a more amusing and jovial commentator that can sometimes help balance out Naomi’s bitterness, but oddly enough neither him or Naomi seem to really acknowledge the more tedious moments. While quite a few tasks are a bit leisurely and low pressure, The Good Life strains that sensation some when it’s have you lug heavy barrels or statues about at a snail’s pace, the player not really able to do much besides hold a control stick forward until the task is done. Usually the game is good about keeping things relaxed rather than artificially drawn out at least and you can sometimes identify a task as one you have no interest in and then head off to find something more compelling.
Naomi isn’t just a regular photographer running around the town though, as soon she gains the ability to turn into a dog or a cat. The two animal forms have their niche uses, a cat letting you climb onto roofs to find special items or reach areas while the dog can follow scents and mark its territory to open up digging spots nearby, but you’ll probably get just as much use out of your camera trying to just take interesting or profitable pictures. It’s nice to have the cat form on hand if you want to leap over a wall Naomi can’t clear, but these aren’t an enormous factor during play and sometimes treated as just another occasionally relevant mechanic that you can look deeper in for specific rewards on later quests. There is a small touch of combat in that the dog can strike badgers and other critters while having to worry about retaliation, but mostly you can get by in the broader Rainy Woods area without too much concern for your health or failure. The areas outside of the main town can sometimes be a little sparse in terms of interesting things to do or see, even another small town just filled with generically named characters lacking the endearing quirks that make the townspeople you live near so fun and interesting, but much like the mechanics, the spaces outside of town are often ones that can be interesting for brief diversions or when something points you to them for a task, the open nature more a means to let you have a bit more control of how and when tasks are done rather than a way to experience content that is as well-realized as the main narrative.
THE VERDICT: The Good Life presents a village full of quirky and endearing characters to get to know and an entertaining plot that lets you dabble in various mechanics along the way, and this is certainly when it’s at its best. However, The Good Life also lets you engage with those people and explore its world and systems outside their narrative importance, this sometimes leading to rather plain activities at times but they work well when slipped into your in-game schedule rather than focused on as a primary objective. The town of Rainy Woods and its populace do have a good chance of growing on you through this mix of plot important activities and casual interaction, and while Naomi can be a bit grating at times herself, there’s enough going on in The Good Life to make getting to the end of the main plot enjoyable so long as you don’t mire yourself in simple side quests too often.
And so, I give The Good Life for Xbox Series X…
A GOOD rating. The Good Life is in a bit of an odd spot as having the wrong expectations for what it will be can end up harming the experience. It’s a life sim in that you need to eat and sleep and can improve your living situation, but it’s not really demanding enough and you can finish the plot without touching on those elements too much. The side quest system doesn’t provide too many compelling optional activities, but if you’re in the area they’re interesting enough to dabble in and see a bit more of the characters you can easily become attached to. The Good Life tends to do a lot of its ideas well in small amounts but if you break off and try to spend too much time with any one of them, they start feeling a little too basic. You can catch sheep of different species, raise them, make a little stable of different types with silly names, but it doesn’t amount to much. However, sheep are good as fast transportation as you ride them to destinations, and some of the goals around raising them can be done quickly for a bit of cash to spend on something like a nice meal or some new duds. The player’s focus ends up an important part of how much enjoyment they’ll get from the game, some degree of self control in not doing things just because they’re available necessary to avoid burning out. Much like how the story only lightly touches on the many mechanics as it goes, a good mix of focusing on the active task but doing little side activities where you can feels more like what The Good Life is trying to provide, the people you meet and the oddities you encounter holding your interest well if you don’t get sidetracked with play styles that often at their best when they intersect with the plot. The Good Life shouldn’t be absolved of some of its shallowness or rough spots, the quest system didn’t need to be so focused on doing things over and over, but some parts like leaving certain questions answered do play more to the game’s mystique rather than feeling like actual failings.
The Good Life is a rather leisurely game with a strong personality and a dash of quirkiness that keeps things just strange enough they can switch to absurdity when needed or simply be part of the everyday operations of a simple little town. Individual parts may not be the best designed, but put together with the proper focus and they make for a story that is worth experiencing. It would be much better off if it could make more of its elements compelling to engage with actively rather than in small doses along the way, but they also mostly stay out of the way if you want to keep your attention on the ideas that do intrigue you. As said earlier in this review, The Good Life feels more like an adventure game that happens to be in the style of a life sim, the self-care elements not pressing as it quite rightly wants to keep its attention on the amusing plot while allowing you to decide what other mechanics you might want to explore more deeply on the side.