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The original Cozy Grove tasked us with heading to a campground, engaging in light busywork tasks for spirits, and making a dark, dull space vibrant and lively again. It felt very Animal Crossing-like! Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit offers us another cozy camping trip that essentially offers an excuse to settle down and befriend bear ghosts again. It builds upon the original in the same way Animal Crossing: New Horizons and other successors in that series did. Which means if you enjoyed Spry Fox’s first woodland romp, you’ll find this just as pleasant. And, now that it’s not locked to Netflix, I found Cozy Grove: Camp Spirits quite lovely on the Switch 2.
Cozy Grove: Camp Spirits begins with a camping trip gone awry. A Spirit Scout finds themselves alone, next to a destroyed bus, when heading out on a journey with their troop. Fortunately, they’re not alone. In addition to the sentient campfire Flamey, there are an array of friendly bears nearby. Most of them are dead, granted. But by befriending and aiding those ghosts, you’ll learn more about them, open up more areas of the wilderness, and get closer to perhaps figuring out what happened.
The gameplay loop in Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit follows the same sort of progression as the original, which means it also falls in line with the sort of casual life sim routine Animal Crossing games established. Each day, you’ll be able to advance storylines tied to different bears on your island. This usually amounts to fetch quests that send you off to collect, cook, or craft certain items. This nets you Spirit Logs, which get fed to Flamey to make more areas of the island and upgrades available and progress the story. In addition, you can put together furniture or decorations to make the island, your tent, and the campground more homey, give items to Tallow for a compendium for rewards, take part in festivals, and just explore looking for new items for crafting or selling to get access to more things.
A lot of elements return from the previous Cozy Grove game in Camp Spirit, such as some decoration styles, characters like the vendor Kit, the Imps running around, and activities like fishing. Some things are new, like powerwashing parts of bears’ habitats that got dirty from day to day or the new dyeing and recycling options for items. Others are built up upon more, like the amount of items available to decorate our campgrounds and tents. One thing I will note is that while the routine is the same and encourages daily check-ins, I felt like the pacing is better in this installment. Starting from the very first day, it feels like there are more bear-based quests available and other gathering opportunities. So I did feel like I had a reason to play for 30-60 minutes, rather than popping on for around 15 to do a quick check-in and move on. The writing also remains as charming and humorous as ever, which makes it even more fun. (Especially if you like the idea of playing a snarky scout.)
Another part of that is that Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is exemplary at getting you to the point where you aren’t desperate for more backpack space or resources. Due to Tallow’s “museum” of items and the in-game achievement system that rewards you for performing certain actions or hitting milestones, it’s incredibly easy to earn enough to buy the first backpack upgrade. Not to mention that even when your visible area of your neck of the woods is small, respawning dig sites and leaf piles mean you can find more items.
There’s also an asynchronous multiplayer option that makes sense, but isn’t demanding. As you wander around your island, you may see other “scouts” from your “troop” who were also in the crash and separated. By interacting with whatever they’re next to, say a mining spot, you get greater rewards. Likewise, after playing a few days, a post office opens up with the ability to send mail.
I will say that because Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit looks so much like the original game and builds so much upon it that some of the issues remain the same. I still had some problems getting adjusted to both fishing and critter catching due to the way the capturing execution works. Likewise, since a core game mechanic involves gradually bringing light to the forest and island again, it might be difficult to see certain things due to layering and the color palette. But then, even when you do restore a space and make things well-lit and vibrant again, it can be difficult to determine which things you can and can’t interact with due to the art direction and layering.
Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is a slightly spooky and definitely soothing opportunity to befriend bears and enjoy cozy camping. It’s never too taxing. The pacing is perfect. It can be a little difficult to adjust to some systems or find items sometimes. But it’s a fine follow-up to the first Cozy Grove.
Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit can be found on the Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and mobile devices.
