Botany Manor Review - More Than Chemical

If you could pigeonhole any publisher, it would be Whitethorn Games. A catalog composed of cottage-core and kitschy chronicles of ordinary people doing (extra)ordinary things, whether it’s the childlike Where The Bees Make Honey, the small-town Lake, or the Pokemon Snap-esque Beasts of Maravilla Island. With a pedigree like that, it’s no wonder that Botany Manor fits in right alongside them.

This is the debut title from Balloon Studios, formed by an ex-developer of Ustwo Games, who was responsible for the stylized Assemble With Care. Botany Manor sees you playing as Arabella Greene, a retired botanist who is in the process of creating a compendium of rare and elusive flora in the hopes it’ll get picked up by a publisher. Not only that, but the game offers an insight into Arabella’s history and the struggles she faced in the lead-up to her retirement.

It’s a first-person puzzler experience, one that’s quite enthralling to figure out what it entails to do in its opening stretches. At first, you expect a linear story, one of spoon-fed exposition and narrative beats as the game slowly explores her character. In reality, however, it’s a puzzle game with deduction mechanics where all information seeks to further both gameplay and characterization quite well.

Gameplay will consist of the player collecting these seeds, information that relates to how the seed is grown under certain conditions, and unlocking the mansion Arabella resides in bit by bit.

The solutions for the puzzles are varied, from a certain fractal of light hitting the sapling to a specific type of birdsong that inspires the plant to bloom - Logistically fantastical, but its solutions are all found in the wording. Your reward is an animation that brings the game to life, especially in some of the tighter environments, where it all blooms and infects everything around it with precious life.

In many ways, Botany Manor’s aesthetic is the reward, something which initially looks derivative, but forms into a whole different marvel when you feel like you’re in control of it. It reminds me of something like Shape of The World, where you’re a direct influence on life in the space around you, even if in Botany Manor, it tends to be relegated to specific areas where plates for clay plant pots sit.

Where Botany Manor “clicked” for me was early on, where progression to the next seed to plant was blocked. Without spoiling the puzzle itself, the game presents what appears to be a problem involving weights in the second chapter, with no clues at first glance. However, a chapter later, the game throws a clue in front of you that makes you double back, try it out, and boom! My brain swelled, a giant ego-fuelled grin on my face as I spurred on.

The level design is also stellar. As you go on through this mansion, shortcuts start to crop up, everything feels lived in, it’s a testament to fantastic environmental design, with world-building taking a back seat because, well, that’s your job. You’re not just a botanist, but an arborist, an environmental scientist, and a florist.

Regardless, you certainly feel like a smart bugger as you’re barrelling through it, although I would recommend against doing the same thing. It’s a short experience, packed with as much content as possible without it becoming dry, but the solutions come quick and fast once you get into the groove. After that, there’s not much to return to, since Botany Manor is structured as an open-and-shut case.

Still, in its brevity, the game provides, and it’s hard to say its lack of length is a detriment, especially in the essence of the moment. You’re not just a detective, but a soothsayer, a bringer of life, and quite a gratifying one at that. You’re not just Arabella Greene, experienced botanist, but a flourishing hand of life.

You certainly feel like a deity, especially since there’s no direct clarification that you’re actually controlling Arabella, in one of the game's weaker points of disconnect. It feels less like you’re Arabella, and more like a spirit after the fact, long gone, detached from humanity, which is a shame, since the human element in the writing of Botany Manor is so well done, abrasive yet defined and deserved.

There’s a large feminist undercurrent throughout the entire narrative, as Botany Manor shouts from the rooftops about the discrimination Arabella faced in her journey to become a respected botanist. Rejections from universities, and dismissals of her research as a hobby gone out of hand, it’s a disparaging sight to see such an indomitable wonder and determination to elevate passion. Is it obvious in its presentation? Well, yes, but if you had a bone to pick like Arabella clearly has, you’d want a loudspeaker as well.

Still, in its flow, Botany Manor stumbles in its attempt to reach a satisfying conclusion, for all involved. It feels like there should be a fairytale ending, something which establishes Arabella’s character not just for the player, but for the world that’s beyond her and us. As it stands, it feels like no one got their time to shine, despite the content feeling the game portrays in the final stretches.

When I finished Botany Manor, there was a deflation. Sometimes you disassociate from Arabella’s qualms, you fail to understand what this world could offer even if it was fixed, and her character wasn’t repeatedly insulted. You want to see Arabella strive, her family and friends prosper, and it’s hard to see the hope. From a certain angle, however, it services the player wonderfully.

Botany Manor Review | Final Verdict

Botany Manor is not just a puzzle-box, but a canvas for the player to let loose, with enough interaction, creativity in solutions, and general wonder to thrive. It’s a holiday, one that I had to be torn from, even if it came in the form of a rather flat ending, but the sights? The sounds? The opportunity? I wouldn’t trade it for the world I created.

Botany Manor was reviewed on Xbox Series S using a copy provided by the developer over the course of 5 hours of gameplay. All screenshots were taken during the process of review.