Review: Pine Hearts puts a heavy emphasis on the “heart” with how much soul it has in it

Pine Hearts is the definition of charm. Everything from the bright colors to the cute bean-shaped design of the NPCs just exudes the promise of a good time. I knew immediately that I wanted to give it a try.

However, I will say that my sensitive little soul did wait just a bit to boot up the game because of the premise of dealing with loss. I was worried about being bummed out and wanted to make sure that I was in the right headspace to deal with those themes.

Thankfully, I can now report that while there is an over-arcing theme of loss, it’s not all-consuming. It’s not embedded into every aspect of gameplay. And while the ending of the game did make me cry, I had such a good time.

As a mild trigger warning, this does deal with the loss of a parent. So, if you may not be ready to read about that theme, you may want to skip this review.

Pine Hearts: A hopeful approach to loss

I can gush about the colors and the designs until the cows come home, but let’s just get into the meat of the game straight off. You play as Tyke, a young man returning to Pine Hearts in the hopes of climbing to the mountain’s summit. 

It’s a bit of an emotional decision, however, because the last time you were here was with your dad who has since passed. I’m not going to go into the specifics of Tyke’s loss simply because it’s entangled in the story and isn’t revealed until much later in gameplay.

All we really need to know is that reaching the summit was a dream your dad had and, all these years later, we’ve returned to fulfill and honor it.

Unfortunately, it appears we’ve made this decision a bit hastily. We show up ill-prepared for the journey. So, Ranger Maddie – our childhood friend from the area – bids us to hang around Pine Hearts and help out the locals. In doing so, perhaps they’ll be kind enough to help us get kitted out.

When I say that I was surprised by how vastly huge the maps are in each area… I’m not kidding. You get an overall map that shows you where certain things are, like campgrounds and rockpools. But, I feel like we needed a secondary map just to navigate the areas. 

There’s a ton to do and the areas are bursting with life. There are people everywhere enjoying all that Pine Hearts has to offer. So, naturally, there’s a lot for us to do and see. 

Luckily, we don’t have access to everything all at once. That’d just be too much to handle. We’re kind of pinned in to certain areas upfront by obstacles that keep us contained. 

Dotted around, there are various sorts of barricades in our way that remind me a lot of LEGO games. In those games, you can see that an area is blocked and you can even see what you need to get past the blockage, but that skill/tool doesn’t open up until later. Eventually, you come back once you can get through. 

Good thing one of the obstacles wasn’t Gandalf…

Pine Hearts – whether intentional or not – takes heavy inspiration from this theme. In some cases, it’s needing an axe to get through some logs and, in others, it’s about hopping across a wooden structure to the other side.

You’ll find that there are two types of obstacles: the ones that need tools and the ones that require a physical ability. For tools, you only need to walk around town and help villagers. All of your tools are supplied by them.

For physical abilities, like pushing down trees or climbing footholes, you’ll need to unlock a memory. In your map area, you’ll find a tab for memories. There are several that are “hidden” to you and can only be unlocked through collecting raindrops. 

You get these by doing things around town and helping villagers, though helping people certainly nets you the most. Once you have enough to unlock a memory, you’ll stroll through a memory of children’s doodles on cardboard cutouts. It’s in these little scenes that you’ll learn more about your time at Pine Hearts with your dad and learn new skills.

It’s not just a game filled with fetch quests, even though I’d enjoy that. Sometimes, helping villagers means doing some mini-games. There are a few different types, like driving a lawnmower or sewing on a machine. They’re all pretty doable and don’t cause much irritation.

Well, except for the last level of sewing. In that mini-game, you have to guide the fabric in a certain design and the shirt is a particularly cruel shape to stay in the lines of. I don’t know who designed it, but with all love and respect – we are archfoes now.

There’s so much I love about Pine Hearts and I wish I could say it was perfect – 10 out of 10, no notes. But, unfortunately, there were some issues, albeit all of them incredibly minor. 

Just a few minor quibbles – I’m sorry, I love you.

Visually, there was only one glitch. As I came on screen, one of the bean people was phasing in and out like they were glitching out of the world to the beat of a really dope techno song. But, it didn’t last but a few seconds.

The other thing that’s more… me related than an actual glitch is when the screen would pan to something. Some NPCs will ask for things across the map and the game helpfully slides to show you where they are. But, when it returns back to your character, it simulates motion sickness for me.

In Pine Hearts, the game will autosave, but there’s no way to force a save. So, if you’re trying to get to a spot where you can close the game, you might be waiting a bit or need to go out of the area and hope a transition to a different region will trigger it.

And finally, the issue that seems like a fairly big oversight for Pine Hearts. You have a journal in your tabs to keep track of your quests. However, it seems to only track narrative quests that further the story. All of the people that you’re meeting and the quests you get from villagers don’t register on there and that’s such a shame.

As I mentioned, the areas are pretty large and, for someone like me with a squirrel brain, I often forgot that I was looking for something for someone. Usually, it’s only by chance that I stumble back around. I really wish all quests registered just for ease of play – especially when they all have achievements attached to them.

I would like to give the team props for some accessibility choices upfront though! When the game boots up, you have some options about how game will play. The first is for controls called “default” and “simplified”. 

Fortunately, we didn’t have to press “F” for this one.

Pine Hearts prompts you when you use your skills and tools, so you walk up to it and hit ‘A’ – I played with a controller, but the keyboard no doubt works the same – to engage and then it will prompt you to hit either ‘A’ again or the left stick in a certain direction.

In default, this option may require you to hold the button longer or time it, but simplified allows you to just tap the button once.

The other accessibility option is visually with “balanced” and “color blocking”. In default, the game isn’t different; everything appears as it normally would. But, in color blocking, it appears to make the game greyscale and put colors overtop of things. Like, all of the objects you can interact with are the same color, all the NPCs you can talk with are a different color.

I didn’t go with color blocking, but I can see where it would be helpful. There was a spot where I had to find something that took far too long and required a guide that I wouldn’t have needed if I had color blocking on.

Overall, the game is stunning. The graphics were wonderful and the music was punchy and changed with each section. The dialogue never felt stiff and I really enjoyed the way that the NPCs were named with alliteration.

Pine Hearts is such a good name for a game that clearly had so much heart poured into it. You won’t regret buying it and giving it a try. I had so much fun. 
If you’re interested in giving Pine Hearts a try, it’s available on Steam and Nintendo Switch for $19.99.

If you want to give something else that we thought had a lot of heart, you can check out our review of Little Kitty, Big City.