Wanderstop Review (PS5)

*Sips tea* Yep, I am relaxing. I am resting. Totally not running a tea shop to trick my body into resting.

I have something to confess. I don’t like tea. My mom does, but I don’t. To be fair, I don’t like coffee either and the drinks that do have coffee in them mask the flavor. Maybe I just haven’t had a tea that I liked yet. Anyway, just because I don’t like tea doesn’t mean I can’t make tea. In real life, I brew my mom some tea and as it so happens it’s time to do that in a gaming world. When I learned about Wanderstop it had me interested from the get go. A narrative-centric tea shop management game with a splash of farming sim? Yes please. It also being a game about burnout? As someone that feels like I’m starting to get burnout, you have me hook, line, and sinker. Let’s dive right into Wanderstop already!

In Wanderstop, we jump into the shoes of Alta whose life has hit a massive pothole recently. Alta is a fighter and she’s spent a decade of her life training hard every day to be the best. Her trusty sword is like an extension of herself at this point and she trained harder than anyone that she knows. This paid off as Alta has been an undefeated champion for the past three and a half years. That is, until one fateful battle when she…lost. And kept losing. She has no idea why this is happening. She took that loss to train even harder and Alta doesn’t understand why she isn’t better than before. Her thoughts start steering her into a dark place until she remembers a certain someone that can help her. So Alta sets out into the forest where Master Winters, who was an unrivaled fighter during her time, resides. Determined, Alta sets out to find her and ready for whatever Master Winters will have her do. Alta will do anything, no matter how brutal, if it means it’ll fix her.

However, things don’t go as planned. As she’s running through the forest she strangely gets tired and then her sword becomes heavy. So heavy she can barely drag it. She ends up leaving her sword behind so she can pick up the pace…only to pass out moments later. Luckily, Alta wakes up safe and sound on a bench right beside a friendly man named Boro. He not only carried Alta to this beautiful clearing, but also her sword (which he picks up with ease) and aims to help Alta with her problem. Boro believes Alta needs to rest and what she’s experiencing is years of exhaustion catching up to her. Alta is against it, of course, but Boro does also offer a way for Alta to get in needed rest while keeping her hands busy. You see, Boro owns the very tea shop located in this clearing called Wanderstop. He shows concern for Alta’s health and offers to put Wanderstop into her hands just for a little while. Just until Alta feels like she’s ready to move on.

Alta, as you can guess, starts out reluctantly running Wanderstop, but I feel it does slowly grow on her (as well as Boro). Or that’s how I played Alta as. During her time at Wanderstop, she’ll meet the various characters, all with their own little quirks, that end up in their little section of the forest and become customers. Where Alta will be able to talk to them, learn a bit about them, what they might be going though, and give or receive advice. Though, they may hit closer to Alta’s situation and what she needs to learn more than you think. Of course, you only have a limited time with everyone before it’s time to move on. Wanderstop is divided into chapters, with each chapter focusing on a couple of customers.

Alta will also have the opportunity to learn more about the forest, about Boro, and you can even learn more about Alta herself when she reflects on the past or her current feelings.

I really liked Wanderstop’s story and writing style. Wanderstop is lighthearted and pretty funny, while also being sad, shocking, or serious when it needs to be. While not everyone is a fighter like Alta, her story is very relatable. At some point everyone is going to experience burnout and there’s a lot who either currently are experiencing it or feel like they’re right on the edge. I feel like I’m one of the latter honestly. Not to mention that a lot of people can relate to not being able to really relax and do nothing. Even the various customers helps bring the game’s message alive. Some are meant to give advice, some are meant to represent something that Alta needs to learn and apply to herself, and some are even going through something similar as Alta. The customers that fall into the latter category are real hard hitters, and I feel are the customers that affect Alta the most, as they give Alta an outside perspective and shows her what could have happened to her or what can happen if she keeps pushing herself.

I personally really liked Alta and found her relatable. She’s pretty gruff, intense, kinda rude, and can be a bit pushy; but she does care for those around her. Her personality also ended up pairing really well with the chill, gentle, and caring Boro. Boro is really the kind of person that someone needs when they’re going through a rough time and his dynamic with Alta throughout the game was pretty funny. I really liked learning more about Alta and Boro as the game progressed. A good chunk is placed in optional things that you can do, but the game does encourage you to do them (both naturally steering you to discover it yourself or telling you it’s a thing you can do).

You do get dialogue choices throughout the game, which I liked as each one does feel like it falls in line with Alta’s personality. Like, I definitely would see Alta as someone that gives out advice that she doesn’t practice. Personally, I basically played Alta as being sarcastic, can veer into being a bit mean if she’s pushed too much, goes along with whatever shenanigans the customers are doing, and lowkey cares about those around her roughness. Plus, I also see her as someone that does slowly grow to like Wanderstop and Boro.

I also loved all the different customers here. They were all unique and quirky in their own way and I really liked the conversations they had with Alta and getting to know them. Like Gerald, a dad that’s trying to impress his son by being a knight, really hit it out of the park. He was so funny. I don’t want to spoil any of the customers, but just know they were all such a delight.

The only thing is that a lot of storylines here don’t have a resolution. You get to hear or see what they’re going through, possibly try to help them, but you never get to see what happens to them. Normally, this kind of thing would not work and feel unsatisfying, but Wanderstop really makes it work. I think what sets Wanderstop apart is that part of its message is that everyone changes and moves on. The vast majority of people we meet we may never know what becomes of them. Even friends. Sometimes they come back into your life, but you may never learn what happened in the time in between. You just have to hope that they’re doing okay. The first time I progressed to the next chapter, I wished that I would get to see the customers that were the focus of the first chapter. I wanted to see what happens to them. However, I did soon become okay with it as I realized that it was part of the point. Plus, it fits with the job that Alta finds herself having and the lore of the forest. I still wanted to talk to them more and was sad to see them go, but I was fine with it. I just hoped that everyone eventually ended up in a good place and the time they spent at Wanderstop helped them.

Now, onto the gameplay! Making tea is quite simple despite the intimidating equipment. It all starts with fresh ingredients. Only the best for Wanderstop’s customers! After picking up all of the tools, it’s time to start. You can gather these however you want, but the most important ingredient does take the longest: the tea balls. While you do get a free tea ball for most of the chapters, you have to make them yourself. To make tea balls, you just have to gather the leaves from tea bushes. You can’t plant tea bushes yourself, but they do spawn in around the edges of the clearing. Once the basket is full, you just set them out to fully dry and wait until they clump together into a ball. Hence a tea ball. As it’s drying out, you can do some other things as you’re waiting. Like planting seeds, which will let you get the fruit needed to flavor the tea. There are a couple different colored seeds that you’ll be using throughout the whole game. Unlike other farming sims, these plants sprout instantly which is pretty nice actually. The seeds themselves just grow a basic, simple plant, but if you plant them in a specific pattern you can get hybrids. There are only two, with one pattern creating small hybrids and large hybrids. Small hybrids will produce seeds, while large hybrids produce fruit, until they run out of pollen. All you have to do is put them in the pattern to get the hybrid you want, water the plant egg that the middle simple plant will turn into, then water the hybrid so the seeds or fruit will grow. Then just pick them. You can combine two different seeds to get even more variations. The game does limit which seeds you have per chapter, which does well with pacing it out so it doesn’t feel overwhelming, adds another way chapters are different from one another, gives more focus as you know you just have to deal with those fruits, and each new hybrid gets a time to shine and be admired. Until its time to bring it all together at the late-game.

There are some other things you can do. You can gather shrooms, which have their own effects, decorate Wanderstop (the shop and the clearing), sweep leaf piles, cut down weeds (which grow out of control if you leave them to their own devices), and grab the cute Pluffins and carry them around or pet them. There is some inventory management here, as Alta has limited space for each category pocket, but there is a bit of a trick to get her to carry more. Of course, you’ll also want to chat with the customers that come into the clearing. Sometimes it’s just to chat, but they will eventually order a cup of tea. They’ll tell you what they want and they’ll wait for however long it takes. Boro will also give you an optional task as well if you want to do it. Other than exploring the clearing, you can also go into Wanderstop to relax. You can also consult your Field Guide if you need a refresher on something like the different flavors and effects each fruit gives when added to tea.

Whenever you’re ready, it’s time to brew up some tea! The tea machine does look a bit intimidating when you first look at it, but it’s actually quite simple. With it being as huge as it is, basically being the centerpeice of the tea shop, it has its own dedicated ladder that allows you easy access to each part of the process. First you need to just pour the water and bring it to a boil using the bellows connected to the furnace. This is a bit of a minigame where you want to keep the temperature in the hatched area in the bar until it does that classic kettle whistle (or to whatever temperature you want as the bar does also double as a way to show you how hot the water is). Next, you just transfer it to the infuser where you’ll put in the tea ball and the fruit(s). You can also admire the color the tea becomes and let me tell you there are some pretty combinations. Then you just transfer to the Pouramid where you’ll easily be able to pour it into a cup by pulling the rope. Of course, you need a cup to put under it and, depending on how much water you poured in the beginning, you can have enough to pour multiple cups. You have control on how long you pull the rope, but that doesn’t mean you won’t overflow the cup. Then, you can give the newly brewed tea to the customer and progress their storyline (which may also lead into another tea order). Which, in turn, also progresses you through the game’s story. You’ll know when it’s time for you to progress to the next chapter. You’ll then put the dirty cup in Wanderstop’s unique dishwasher and that’s the whole process. Easy peasy!

You can also have Alta drink some tea, whether you brew a batch just for her or it’s from the batch you brewed for a customer. All you have to do is take Alta to one of the many seats located inside Wanderstop or in the clearing and she’ll drink it as you admire the view that it gives you. Alta will then have tea thoughts that correspond with whatever effect that the fruit has on the drinker. This may have Alta tell you what she’s currently feeling, her thoughts on something, or bring up something from her past (and maybe even a combination of two). Like she’ll remember a time she felt she was wronged if she drinks tea with Chip Chips or how she feels after drinking tea with Pellmelon to give you an idea on how its effects feel to those that drink it.

For teas that have multiple ingredients, it does seem that the game does default to the first ingredient you put in for tea thoughts. The game also makes it a bit easier to hear all the tea thoughts as Alta doesn’t require a tea ball.

hehehehehehe

While there aren’t any collectibles here, there are trinkets and cups that you can find or be rewarded with! There are lost packages that you can find and, when you send them back, you’ll get a letter from the receiver along with an item. Sweeping leaf piles and cutting weeds also has a chance of dropping something. There’s also the Gift Shroom which will change a plant to give you trinkets. Some customers will also give you the choice of accepting a trinket from them as well. So what are these items that you can get? Well, trinkets are just what it sounds like. They can be dolls, figurines, rocks, statues, anything and you can display them around Wanderstop. Whether it’s on a shelf or on a table. You can also get photos, you take your own photos with the camera, that you can put in the various frames in Wanderstop. Lastly, you won’t just have the plain ‘ole boring cups as you can also find fancy new cups! And let me tell you, there are some good cup designs in this game and I definitely had my favorites (some which I had only Alta drink from). Just don’t put anything on the floor that you don’t want the Pluffins to have.

However, the sad thing is that when you progress to the next chapter, you lose mostly everything. After a while, I was fine with it, but the first time…man was I devastated. The only items that carry over are customer trinkets that you can choose to accept and photos that are framed. There were definitely items that I wished carried over, but the silver lining is that seemingly new items do get added to the item pool. I’m not sure if items are also taken out, though.

There are also books, which you’ll accumulate over the course of the game (don’t worry, these don’t disappear). It’s totally optional, but you can read these books if you want to. I only read some of them, but they were quite entertaining and I am planning on reading the other books.

I really liked the gameplay here. I was a bit worried that I would wish there was more or less of the tea shop sim aspects or the farming sim aspects; but I personally thought they were balanced quite well. I found that the various aspects of the gameplay did well in feeding into each other, making it a nice little loop. Like, at first I was a bit annoyed that you can’t plant tea bushes, but running around the edge of the clearing looking for tea bushes does get you to naturally spot shrooms, leaf piles, weeds, and other things too. Which you may not unless you need/want shrooms or weeds/leaf piles happen to spawn where you planted your seeds. I also did like how the farming brewing tea was handled. It’s quick and simple, so it doesn’t take too much from other aspects of the game, but has a sprinkle of complexity to it so it feels engaging. Like how some orders kinda has you puzzling out which fruit(s) you need by only giving you a flavor, feeling, or effect that they want. Or how there are some complex orders in here. Don’t worry, if you ever need help or you just want to double check before you start brewing, there is a book that’ll tell you the answer. I found the majority of the orders easy to figure out, but there were some tricky ones that I needed help on or wanted to check and see if I got it right. I did also like how there was no time limits, so if you happen to get a bit sidetracked or brewed the order wrong, it’s fine. Customers will wait however long it takes so no worries. Wanderstop is indeed a chill, cozy game.

I was also a bit worried on the game feel, especially since I wasn’t able to try out the game’s demo, but I had nothing to worry about. Controlling Alta felt as nice as it looks in demo gameplay and the only tricky hitboxes (for me, at least) were the rope that pours the tea. I did have moments where I used the watering can to water nothing every so often when I thought I was on the hitbox, was too quick, or poured thinking it still had some seeds/fruits to give.

What I especially loved is all the optional little things that you can discover by accident or just doing it for the laughs. Granted, some of these are told to you by Boro eventually, but I managed to discover them all before Boro told me. Like the time I had Alta drinking plain water just to see if she says anything (she does, and funnily enough I picked the best spot for it). You can actually get tea thoughts on drinks that you won’t get a stamp for in your book. Or when I accidentally set a filled cup down, picked it up when I saw a Pluffin running towards it thinking “no no this isn’t for you…but I wonder…” before I set it back down and watched what happened. You can try to aim for the perfect pour club. Maybe your curiosity rears its head as you wonder if Boro has unique dialogue if you’re holding certain somethings. Heck, you can run out into the forest and there’s a small bank of unique dialogue both when you’re in the forest cutscene and with Boro. I went back into the forest right at the beginning just to see what happens, only to find out that there was new dialogue. From then on, I did it until I saw everything new and some conversations with Boro afterwards does give you some nice lore. You can even have Alta try picking up her sword and she’ll have new dialogue each chapter. Which gives you a look into how Alta feels for that chapter. Not to mention visual tea effects

It felt like the developers knew what the players were going to try and implemented it (which makes sense considering the creator of The Stanley Parable is on the team).

Now it’s time for the negatives. Not every game is perfect and Wanderstop is no exception. I actually originally said I barely had any negatives, but you can see how wrong I was by the length of this paragraph haha. I did want to try out having open inventory to toggle, but it kept resetting itself back to the default press and hold. There was one photo frame where it weirdly remembered the first photo I put in it. So when I would be switching out a photo in this specific frame to see how it looked, I’ll switch it again and find that it was transformed into the first photo I ever put in the frame in my hand (which was a bowl of gumballs…I was trying out the camera okay). Which was a bit annoying both the first two times when I was confused and then afterwards when I forgot it was that picture frame. There was also another frame where I could swear I switched out the photo, but I don’t remember if it was the game’s fault or one of the few times I closed the game without saving. There’s a workbench that gets a wall tool slot in later chapters that I’m not sure why. There’s no reason to put down any of the wall tools and it just gave me the impression that the game was going to introduce a late game tool. I also did have one of the books disappear on me cause I read two letters back to back (both giving me a gift). To be fair, part of the reason could be because the miscellaneous inventory pocket was overfilled, but closing the game without saving fixed it since the autosave was before I checked the mailbox so it was all good. The inventory did feel a bit small too, but there is a trick to make Alta store more items and I have a habit of picking up everything anyway. I also did wish that lost packages you already sent either didn’t respawn or gave you a random trinket rather than a drawing of a fly. There are some customers that are only with you for a very short time that I wished we had some more interaction with. Especially with a certain customer that I was hoping was going to return again. On customers, I did have one late-game customer storyline cut off early. I guess her requests weren’t required as I accidentally progressed the chapter to when everyone stops speaking without knowing it. It’s even worse cause she still had her tea request bubble a little bit afterwards and by the time I brewed her tea correctly I couldn’t give it to her. Lastly, and I just remember this, late game I did also have a customer say I put in a fruit she told me not to put in…when I didn’t. And I know I didn’t cause I looked back at my gameplay footage and I didn’t even have the fruit in my inventory.

Other than that, it’s going to be mainly personal. Like, even though I know it plays into the whole point of the game’s narrative, I was still so devastated that you lose mostly everything when you progress to the next chapter. Especially since I always seemed to get awesome cups towards the end where I either don’t have requests anymore or there’s only like one left to do. Not to mention that there are some cute trinkets. It kind of makes getting trinkets pointless, but it does negate the complaint of getting dupes and makes it easier to throw them into tea to add a fancy visual effect. Similarly, while I ended up not minding that a lot of characters didn’t get a resolution to their stories, that doesn’t mean I didn’t wish that they did. I liked these characters a lot. I personally found everything nicely balanced and systems feeding into each other, but I can see some players wishing there was more or less of various aspects of the game.

Wanderstop’s sound and visuals were wonderful here. The soundtrack definitely gives off a cozy vibe and the different tracks that the radio in Wanderstop also fits the tea shop vibe. The game doesn’t hold back when it calls for it though. Each radio station also has sounds of their animal when you’re up on the second floor. Which was pretty cool and took me a while to figure out where cat purring was coming from haha. I found the sound effects for the various things to be pretty good too, I liked all the little sound details that really helped in immersion, and I loved how the Pluffins squeak when you walk/run with them in your hands. Also, don’t think I didn’t notice that all the different characters had their own sound effects for their text and some did have their own tracks that play whenever you talk to them. I loved that added detail. It wasn’t necessary, but it does add more personality and uniqueness to them. There is partial voice acting here too, which was great. Everyone did a good job, especially Alta’s voice actor, and it was so good that I did wish it was fully voiced, but at the same time it would take away the impact that voiced scenes have so I’m glad it wasn’t. Plus we wouldn’t have the unique text sound effects for everyone (which also ends up coming into play in a meaningful way).

I did also like the visuals and art direction. I really liked the art style that cutscenes had, the area that Wanderstop is located in was beautiful and I really liked how the area changed with each chapter, and Wanderstop does nail that cozy, magical tea shop vibe. Especially with that huge tea brewing machine and the dishwasher. If Wanderstop wasn’t somewhere in the forest, I would want to visit every day. I loved all the different designs for the plants and the fruits; as well as the effects they have on how the tea looks. Even when I was in the late game I took some time to admire the colorful tea I brewed up. I also loved all the character designs. They all managed to feel like they’re part of the same world, despite some being vastly different, and you can get some of their characterization from their design and the symbol that takes the place of their character portrait. I also did notice that everyone does have different animations for when they drink tea (no matter how small the difference was), which was definitely a nice touch and gave everyone some more personality. Not to mention that everyone does have different animations and pathing.

Wanderstop performed wonderfully on the PS5. There were some pop ins (one creepy one was when a customer’s eyes didn’t fully render by the time I looked at them, so they just had a vacant stare for a couple seconds) and the only problem I had was the one time my game froze after throwing in a trinket to see the visual tea effect it had. I guess music was just too powerful haha. Luckily, the game does autosave often enough and I didn’t lose any progress (plus I got the trinkets I threw in the tea back).

Verdict

I absolutely loved Wanderstop and definitely recommend picking it up. The more time I spent with Wanderstop and the more I discovered, the more I fell in love with the game. There are certainly elements that some may not like or want more/less of, but personally I think everything was balanced just right. There were some things that I didn’t like and I ran into some problems, but I overall loved everything about this game. I loved it so much that I did damn near everything and wished there was more despite thinking the game ended at the perfect time. You can tell how much love and attention to detail that was put into it and it does really well with wrapping a cozy management and farming sim combo with an emotional and impactful narrative. I’ll certainly miss all of the characters here, especially Boro and Alta, and I like to think they reached their happy conclusion.

Wanderstop also happened to come at the perfect time for me, where I was having some weather-related anxieties. The game did help me calm down and take my mind off of it.