Roots of Pacha is on the Switch now, and I’ve had a few weeks to take my time with it. In so doing, I realized just how well suited it is to the system.
Life sims are great on any platform, to be clear. We often see some of them on PCs first, due to elements like early access, then ported to other places. That format also means mods could be available as a community grows. On consoles, it can mean access to a larger audience and immediate controller support. But the hybrid nature of the Switch means they can be especially convenient, and that’s what happened with my latest Roots of Pacha adventures.
I spent quite a bit of time with the PC version of the game, but there are a lot of things that got in my way enjoying it there. A big one being that I spend at least half my day at work in front of a computer. When my shift ends, I don’t necessarily want to spend more time in front of that particular screen. Some sort of detachment ends up feeling healthy and necessary, for the sake of creating more of a balance. Couple that with my go-to and only machine being a MacBook Air, and it’s not an ideal gaming set-up to begin with.
It’s only when I got into Roots of Pacha on the Switch that it felt more like a retreat. I pick up and play for a half hour or hour per day. I get to build some relationships, advance the community’s progress by investing in new types of technologies, and take a break. It is like an actual step away, which I appreciate.
More importantly, it’s a port that genuinely feels comfortable. I’d even say in some cases more so than on the PC. The controller support is pretty great for the Switch version of Roots of Pacha. I even prefer the fishing minigame method here to attempting to handle it on a PC with a mouse. It’s easy to find information, and perhaps because of my muscle memory from games like Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons, I’m more instinctively taking to certain farming actions and routines. While there was a minor hiccup when I started playing involving a cutscene issue, patches also rolled out at a pretty good pace to ensure it’d be perfectly playable.
It just feels like the Switch is the way to go with Roots of Pacha, and I can’t shake that with every hour I put into it. Even though it does mean losing some of the accessibility and easy of use options on the PC, as well as not being able to use mods, the portability and ability to make my system my go-to life sim machine makes it worth it.
Roots of Pacha is available on the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC.
