I've been wallowing in the September profusion of wholesome/cosy games. I have a huge backlog just from that month alone! For now I want to say a bit about Wylde Flowers, which I've played on Nintendo Switch.
The format will be familiar to people who enjoy farming or life sims, but with one added difference to begin with: the usual grandparent who enables your move away from the city is still alive. Why does this matter? Because your relationship with your grandmother comes to matter a lot, emotionally and in terms of the plot.
And that's pretty much the strength of this game in a nutshell: relationships and story matter. A lot. You will want to talk to everyone on the island each day, not just for the usual farming/life sim reason of building up friendships, but because each character has their own story, their own background to discover. And this is a diverse range of characters coming from different cultures, some of whom will tell you quite a bit about their family and their relationship to their culture. You can also romance some of them, and that includes characters of all genders, including non-binary.
I very much enjoyed getting to know all the characters, even before the main story picked up more. And then I was gripped, because the story itself is full of twists and turns. You aren't just a farmer in this game. You also eventually become a member of a coven of witches that meets secretly in the forest at night. As time passes, tensions form in the town between people who fear "malcontents" and associate those with the unknown witches, and with the townsfolk who are in on the supernatural goings-on, and who realise that there are other malevolent forces that threaten everyone on the island, witch or otherwise.
There's also a pleasing sense of progression in terms of unlocking different areas around the island. At first you can only explore so much, but over time more becomes available to you.
Some nice quality of life things: you can adjust the speed of passing time, so that you can opt for a more relaxed pace if you feel under pressure. Or if you find yourself having done enough for the day and wanting to meet up with your coven sooner, you can also choose to have time pass quickly instead. There is a stamina meter in operation as well, and at first it might feel a bit challenging to manage this. But you eventually unlock foods or spells that help you with that, and your stamina meter does expand at fixed points in the story.
I would say that this is a great game for people who love a good narrative and enjoy interesting characters, and who also like the farming/life sim format. It's got more depth to it than some other similar games I've played, and I found myself really gripped by the story.
