Flock Review: A Cozy Creature Catcher Adventure on The Back of a Bird
A charming creature catcher game where you can soar through vibrant biomes, collect unique creatures, and create a colourful flock in a relaxing, co-op adventure
Available on: PC, Xbox, Playstation
Genre: Adventure, Creature Catcher, 2 Player
Developer: Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
How Cozy? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Very Cozy
Game Verdict: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5
Glide through stunning skies and gather creatures in Flock, a joyful co op or single plater game all about creature collecting and exploration. Play as a flying shepherd and charm strange and adorable critters into joining your flock. Find sheep to add to your flock as you grow your sky bound herd, shear their wool and turn it into cute little accessories for you and your critters!
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Story
When visiting your Aunt and Uncle, you are challenged by them to investigate the burgling bewls, deviously striped creatures stealing items from around the town. Your uncle is a shepherd, and he encourages you to discover the unique creatures around the various biomes and keep a log of them, and if you can, charm them to add to your flock. They also tell you about some elusive creatures, unique and beautifully designed creatures to try and charm into your flock. The elusive creatures usually work like the “bosses” in the game, but as there is no combat, the challenge is to complete puzzles to charm them.
Gameplay
Flock is ultimately a creature catcher, similar to Pokemon but without the battling. Instead, you must observe the creatures you come across, charm them and collect them to add to your flock, and they will elegantly glide behind you as you explore the land, soaring across different landscapes. To charm new creatures, you need to find particular whistles, which involves a mini game where you need to press at a certain time, similar to a fishing mini game. This would be one of my few niggles with the game, I found this a little tideous and awkward. It got easier the more I got used to the mechanic, but it took me a while to get used to it. And the rarer the creature the more awkward this is, but of course, that adds to the challenge.
The flying mechanic is really smooth, the bird flies on it’s own in terms of height and avoiding obstacles, all you need to do is direct it left or right or give it a boost in speed. But it’s a delightful mechanic, very enjoyable to sweep across the landscapes with your trailing flock of colourful creatures.
Graphics and Visuals
I was really impressed with the visuals in the game. The characters are a little blocky but they all fit within the theme, and the different biomes have thorough detail to differentiate them from each other. But the best designs in the game are the creatures, they’re unique, bright and colourful, especially the elusive creatures which feel like they have a slight design level up to isolate them as the rarer breeds. The graphic of shearing the sheep is probably my favourite bit of the whole game.
Longevity
The story takes around 6 hours to complete, and there’s lots to do. Even once the story is complete you can go back and collect any creatures you’ve not found, or complete the mini games and collect clothing items. The game unfortunately felt a little front heavy for my liking. The first half is really strong and enjoyable, but when I was getting into the last quarter, I felt a bit like I was constantly retreading areas without much direction. This was a real shame because I was thoroughly charmed by the first half of the game. As a result, once the story was over I was a bit burnt out by it, and didn’t have much of a desire to go back and find the more well hidden creatures. I definitely had my fill, and without much of a story or unique characters, I don’t feel like I’d have much of a craving to go back.
Conclusion
All of that being said, I found Flock overall a very enjoyable experience. It has it’s flaws for sure, being top heavy, and a slightly clumsy catching mini game. But aside from that, the game is very visually striking, the creatures are delightful to discover, really bright and colourful and I loved having plenty to collect. Soaring across the unique biomes with an ever growing flock of adorably designed creatures is great fun, so I would definitely recommend on that basis. My criticisms could be down to personal taste, so if you like a cute creature catcher collectathon, you’ll definitely enjoy Flock.
