Recent reviews by Hex: Student Loans

Came for the memes, stayed for the fun gameplay, interesting characters, and prickling sensation that not all was as it seemed. I had to solve the mystery!

Calico is a cute, casual, wholesome game where you decorate and fill up your cat cafe with animals, explore, and help your neighbors with their problems. It is extremely LGBTQ+ friendly: there's lesbians, there's people that use they/them pronouns, and you don't pick a gender when you make your character. I finished the game in just over 6 hours, and I bought the game on sale. I would recommend it at full price, just know that it is a short game. But what is there is fun and worthwhile.

Pros:
Light and danger-free: no consequences, can't fail.
Lots of animals for your cafe! You can pick up almost all of the animals and wiggle them around, pet them, and make them big and ride around on them.
Diversity of characters, including: gender, orientation, body type, race, and species.
Decoration of the cafe is in-depth. Lots of furniture to use, and lots of space (to a degree, see cons) to decorate.
The cooking mini-game is fun! Without spoiling much, you get shrunk down and cook while small.

Cons:
The run animation is not good. It was the first thing I looked up and I was really disappointed I couldn't turn it off. When your character runs, they stretch their arms out and waddle like a toddler. Really just, weird. You get used to it after a while and it's less distracting, but very distracting and offputting in the beginning.
The cafe doesn't feel very important. Yes, you unlock recipes and progress quests by putting animals and furniture in it, but you really aren't interacting with it very much during gameplay. Once you use a recipe, the food remains available in your cafe forever. People come and buy food while you're out, so you don't have to be at your cafe. I think that would be fine if there were maybe also a mini-game where you mind the cafe and people come in and ask for things, but as it is your cafe is just a money-maker you decorate while exploring and questing. I just wish there were more to do at the cafe.
Similarly, the cafe does not grow as you progress. I would have really liked to have seen upgrades to your cafe, as in, making the interior bigger. The outside of the cafe has plenty of space to decorate to your liking, but you have to be very choosy about what you put inside. It would have been nice to be able to expand the interior to make more room for decorations.

The pros definitely outweigh the cons on this game. It is a really wholesome, short, casual adventure through a pastel world full of diverse characters. Just don't go into it thinking it will be long, or that you will be spending a lot of time tending your cafe, because the focus is definitely on aesthetics, characters, petting animals, and exploration.

Great rhythm game, lots of room for getting better and beating your high-score. The gameplay is easy to pick up and the visual style is super cute. If you get the DLC there's a TON of songs with good variety. I personally got the DLC on sale, but honestly for the normal price it's not the worst, it does add lots of songs and guarantees future song packs for free. My advice would be to get the base game, see if you like it, and if so get the DLC.

I am become goat, destroyer of worlds.