Trove Review: A Blocky MMO Lacking In Texture

Trove is a voxel-based MMO sandbox game that was originally released back in 2015. I’ve never actually played it before, despite it being free, and I couldn’t tell you what the reason was for that other than that I assumed it wasn’t meant for me. While I adore a cute game, trust me, I love ‘em, Trove always looked like it would be for people newer to gaming than me, younger people, you know, kids.

The story of Trove is basically that there’s a villain to fight, some general enemies rolling around in the various areas who want to eat/kill/generally annoy you, and it’s your job to stop all of that bad stuff happening. It’s a simple premise, and it’s all just an excuse to roam around the many realms of Trove, explore the dungeons within them, gather loot, build a base, and maybe even build your very own world too.

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A Bit Like Life

There’s a lot to do in Trove, and I can definitely see why people are besotted with it. The general freedom it offers borders on being completely overwhelming, and the cutesy visual style is one that’s incredibly easy to get along with. It’s even free, which is obviously a big old boon for those who want to play games, but can’t afford to buy new ones.

Of course, there are purchases to be made here, and a lot of them. I can’t really tell you what you can buy, but it seems to be a mix of boosts, skins, and the odd gameplay enhancing bit, but the whole thing was so excessive that I immediately left the shop in favour of just exploring the game.

No Thank you Sir

Well, I say immediately, it actually took me a few seconds to leave the shop because the performance of the game, at least on Switch where I was playing it, was less than ideal. Every menu took a good three or four seconds to open, the game lagged and jumped around a fair bit in nearly every level, and there was a shockingly large amount of pop-in too.

It would be less of an issue if the moment-to-moment gameplay was fun, but for someone who’s been playing games for a while, you’re going to be constantly reminded of other games that do parts of this game better. Minecraft is a better sandbox, nearly every other game does combat in a more engaging and rewarding way, and while the freedom is certainly there, it all feels a little superfluous.

Verdict

I’m not keen on Trove, as you can probably tell, but I respect it being free. It’s the kind of game I imagine a lot of people get into when they’re quite young, and as long as the people in control of purchasing are able to cut off any financial commitments here, it’s a good time. However, it’s not for me at all. Also, it crashed so hard I actually had to restart my Switch as it wouldn’t let me close the game either. So that’s fun.

2/5

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch

Review copy provided by the publisher