There’s something about sitting in the middle of a beautiful landscape, playing Preserve, that makes it even more wondrous. I had the opportunity to write this review while sailing up the Fjords and surrounding Alaska wilderness and I don’t know if there could have been a better setting. I could see an eagle flying around outside the window of my cabin as I made a habitat to place down for its in-game counterpart. The music playing while we cruised the water matched perfectly, and many times I found myself pausing the game to watch the wildlife around me as I continued to listen to the game's music.
Preserve’s gameplay was the highlight of the game for me. I find myself enjoying many puzzle type games and I was intrigued on the initial release of the game. It has four different biomes with a puzzle mode and campaign mode in all of them, as well as a full creative mode. Each biome has unique quirks to differentiate them from one another. And while I really enjoyed the first biome, Continental, I think Jurassic was probably my favorite overall. There are also a Savanna biome and an Underwater biome. I found some of the puzzles actually challenging and even the Gold scores in Campaign to be fairly difficult to obtain due to the randomness of each playthrough. Each time you play the levels are randomly generated in which cards you are given and how the land chunks are formed, so every playthrough is unique! You have to be very particular in how you build your worlds each time to have the perfect symbiotic ecosystems. I really loved the variety of animals and habitats and the combinations you could build them in to make beautiful habitats.
Which brings me into the visuals. Some of my end game creations were one large, but beautiful, ecosystem. It was really cool to see what my first placements ended up becoming once it was all said and done. The water, whether it be rivers, lakes, or oceans melded perfectly into the surrounding cliffs, forest, or meadows. I really liked how once the habitats were established they really became a living habitat. Watching the wildlife walkaround in the habitats built is just another bonus, and Preserve includes a photo mode as well, to capture those picturesque moments.
Where I would have liked to see some improvement is the sound. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy what music was there in the game, and I liked that each biome had a unique spin on the background music. However, I found there were large gaps in between tracks, or in creative mode there was no music at all. Especially in a mode I may ‘chill’ in for long periods of time, I need something! The animal noises occasionally would really sharply break up the chill and relaxing sound of the background music (namely the eagle and dolphin when you placed them). Small complaints on the animal side, they were just a bit shriller than the mood of the music. Overall nicely done, but could definitely see room for improvements.
I know not everyone can have the same experience travelling up a beautiful landscape while playing preserve, but I highly recommend checking it out if you enjoy nature and puzzle games. It has a good unique spin with tons of originality. Definitely a fresh feel for a puzzle game. I plan to spend quite a bit more time enjoying the challenges of the puzzle modes and getting the last couple gold medals I wasn’t quite able to reach.
