Paradise Bay
Mobile
Nostalgia Factor:
Nostalgia is going to play a heavier factor than normal for this review, because Paradise Bay doesn’t exist anymore! That’s right, servers shut down for this game earlier in the year on May 17th. I played Paradise Bay religiously for about three years on my phone and I was sad to see it go. I was pretty dang attached to this game - I had to let some time pass before I thought about writing this review, so I could do it objectively instead of emotionally.
It is funny I even played this game at all, because these types of city/community building titles do not appeal to me whatsoever. The only reason I even downloaded it to begin with is because I thought that this was a puzzle title, and I was looking for an alternative to Candy Crush. As soon as I downloaded this game and saw what type of game it was, I nearly turned around and just deleted it. Instead, I decided to give it a shot. Before I knew it, I was absolutely hooked, and I would stay hooked for three whole years.
There is not much to see here as far as story goes. You play as an unseen villager known as the Trademaster, who is helping to build a community on a tropical island. It is your job to set up various shops around this island, as well as planting crops and trading items with other players. The island is populated with colorful characters that often give you jobs to complete and tasks to perform as you work on the island.
Some of these villagers have their own fun little stories. One of them will say he is throwing a party and he needs several things that you either have to acquire in a trade or build using the island’s shops. Let’s say – party clothes. Complete his order and he’ll give you another order to fill. Let’s say it is drinks this time. Then he’ll tell you to get food. So on and so forth until he is ready to throw the party. You don’t actually see or participate in this party, but it does go down as a mission completed. Money earned, reward items go into your inventory. Then someone else will have a series of tasks for you to complete.
There’s a lot of small conversations and character banter segments that you have to watch in-between filling these orders. I found these conversations to be pretty dull and pointless, and I often skipped over them so that I could get back to working on my island. That about sums up my experience with the game’s story. Paradise Bay is always giving you little conversations to read or small story events to keep you occupied, but I found them all to be pretty inconsequential and minor. This game is all about building and maintaining your island, and everything else plays second fiddle to that.
Gameplay:
I am sure I am going to be forgetting a lot of things here, as I haven’t played this game since May. The first thing you want to get a handle on when playing this game is planting crops. There are several different types of crops you can plant, all of which can be used at the shops to create items. The more common the crop is (like cotton and bamboo), the less time it takes to grow it once you’ve planted it. I think cotton was a minute and a half and bamboo was two minutes. The more exotic the crop (like lavender and wheat), the longer they take to grow. Some of them can even take several hours before they are ready to be harvested.
Once you have the crops you need, you can use them to create items at shops. For example you can use cotton to create fishing nets. Since these are pretty basic items that you are going to be using a lot, they don’t take a whole lot of time to complete. Once you have the fishing nets, you can use these nets to try and catch some fish. If you are trying to catch a basic fish, it will only take you a couple minutes to get one. If you are going for shrimp, it will take a little longer. If you are going for crabs, you are going to have to wait about ten minutes. Once you have the fish you need, you can then use them to create a more advanced item. Combine three shrimp with a lemon and you’ll get grilled shrimp. Just grill a solo fish, and you’ll get a piece of grilled fish. Or you can use these items to craft different types of sushi. Basically, everything starts with the crops. Once you get the crops you need, you can start crafting all different types of items. Food, clothing, beverages, jewelry, supplies. The possibilities are not necessarily limitless, but there is still a LOT you can make. Obviously the items that take the longest to build are going to be worth more money at the trading post.
If you are getting impatient, you can use purple gems to speed up the time it takes for the items you are creating. If you need a gold ring to complete a boat order, but the ring is still 3 hours from being done and your boat order is going to expire in 45 minutes, use your gems to get instant access to your gold ring. Gems can be earned by completing various orders both at the dock and for villagers. You can also buy them with real money, but I never went that far.
That’s the basic gist of this game. Plant your crops, harvest them, use these crops to create things at the shops. You always want to keep that wheel turning. Make sure something is always growing, make sure the shops are always busy creating things. My island was quite prosperous. I leveled up as far as I could level up. I earned so much in-game money that it became useless to me after a while.
When Paradise Bay debuted, only the main island was accessible to players. As the game got more advanced and more features were added, different islands began to open up. One of these islands had a tree that grew purple gems you could harvest every 24 hours. Some of the islands had special items like ready-made pieces of sushi you could buy without having to wait to create them. Another island contained a trading post where you could turn your dyes into special medallions, and you could then cash in these medallions for things like gold coins, maps to new islands, or pet stickers.
Which brings me to the last major gameplay feature of Paradise Bay – the pets. Getting my hands on every pet I could own became my main goal as I played. There was a HUGE variety of pets you could earn. I must have had at least 40 to 50 of them in my possession when the game shut down. You got monkeys, dolphins, beavers, raccoons, bunnies, bats, hippos, and many more. Some of these pets could be earned by completing “Tradefest” in time. Tradefest is a week-long free for all where you have to collect items and trade them in, in order to gain rewards and access to new pets. Or you could get pets through collecting stickers. That was a long and arduous process for me, as some pets would require 50-plus stickers to activate – and the game only gives you a sticker or two a day. Once you have a pet in your possession, you can feed it every few hours or so. Feeding your pets gives you experience, cash, and rare items like pet stickers and things that expand your inventory.
There are still a ton of layers to the gameplay of this game that I haven’t touched yet. Honestly, I could sit here for hours and tell you everything the game had to offer, which I am not going to do. Let’s just say that this game did a LOT to keep you occupied at all times. Often I would pop open Paradise Bay with the intent of just planting some crops and shutting the game off for a while, and I would get drawn into a two hour playing session. Honestly, I am kind of glad this game is gone because it sucked up so much of my spare time!
Graphics:
Things are pretty basic looking in this game. Nothing to get too excited about. But it doesn’t look ugly either. Things are bright and colorful and full of personality. That is what gives the game its charm to me. The characters are all unique and different looking. The pets are beyond cute, and their animations always had me giggling. Again, the game is not a whole lot to look at, but it is still pretty fun and pleasing to the eye.
Sound:
The music of the game is pretty catchy, which is good because you are going to be listening to it quite a bit. Paradise Bay's sound effects can be a little obnoxious, however, with all the loud jangling casino-type sounds the game makes when you harvest crops. Honestly, I would often mute this game as I played it, and put on some music or a TV show. There is no voice acting, no kind of audio cues you need to be listening for. Just the same music droning on and the same old sound effects that the shops, factories, and pets would emit. It is not necessary one tiny bit to hear anything as you play.
Overall:
I miss Paradise Bay. I really do. It is funny how a game that I downloaded on a complete whim, in a genre that I don’t even enjoy, ended up turning into my “go to” mobile game. I could always open up Paradise Bay and find something to do. Even though the tasks in this game seem relatively mundane (grow crops, craft items at shops, buy and sell items on the trade market), they were fun to me. I had a daily routine where in the morning I would plant a bunch of crops that took a long time to grow so they would be ready for me later. I’d collect all the items from my various shops around the island, and get my shops working on new items. I’d scan the docks for pet sticker or map piece rewards, and start working on the items I needed to complete the boat orders, if necessary. I’d get my seals working on finding buried treasure. I’d visit the bonus islands and buy everything in sight, so when I came back later in the day they would be re-generated and I could buy them again. I’d go around and feed all my pets. I had a routine down pat. You don’t even know. I became attached to my island and my pets in a way that I didn’t even think would be possible.
That’s why it came as such a shock to me when I learned that the game would be shutting down. I took a few breaks from Paradise Bay (one of these breaks was even three or four months long), but for the most part playing this game had been a part of my daily routine for three years. This is going to make me look like the world’s biggest snowflake, but I actually shed a tear or two when I read the news. All that dedication and all that work I put into my island: gone! As a parting gift, the game makers gave each player ten million purple gems so that they could go nuts and really snaz up their island before the game shut down. I initially started to spend these gems to buy all the pets I was missing, but after a while I stopped. It seemed cheap and pointless to just be handed these things. I felt I was cheating by not earning them the natural way. So I decided to stop playing. It was time to say goodbye to Paradise Bay.
I wanted to go out the same way I came into the game: with nothing. I closed up my shops, I put away my pets, I sold every last item in my inventory. It was a rather cathartic way to say goodbye to this game.
Several months have now passed since the game’s removal. Clearly I am going to give Paradise Bay a high score because the game meant so much to me. But no game is flawless. Where did Paradise Bay fall short?
I can think of a few things. First of all, the lack of pet stickers. Like I said before, I was super obsessed with unlocking every pet there was to unlock. But many of these pets were absurdly, almost impossibly difficult to unlock. There were several pets I was trying to unlock for months and months. But the stickers you have to collect to unlock these pets are ultra-rare and handed out randomly. It was possible to go days, weeks, even months before collecting just one sticker for some of these rare pets.
And then there was the lack of incentive to keep playing once you’d maxed out your character. I had hit the EXP ceiling for my Trademaster several times as I played. Eventually they’d update the game and raise the ceiling, but until they did, you didn’t have a whole lot to do in the meantime. When you were maxed out all there was to do was keep plugging away, hoping to earn pet stickers and collect gold coins. These coins ultimately became useless to me because my island was so prosperous. So really it became all about the pet stickers, which were super-rare and would only be sighted a couple times a day. To me, that wasn’t a good enough incentive to keep going. I think this is when I took a few of my long breaks from the game, when my character was maxed out. Sure, they’d update the game and raise the level cap eventually, but those kind of updates only happened every few months or so. There was almost no reason to keep playing until they did so. This is my major complaint about the game.
Still, this isn’t enough to damper my overall feelings on Paradise Bay. I loved the game as I was playing it – and I still think back on it quite fondly. It is a shame it’s been deleted forever. Just to play it one more time, if only for five minutes, would be such a treat. But alas, the game is gone. Pretty soon I will have nothing but this review to remember it by. It’s been a pleasure, Paradise Bay. Adios, au revoir, arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, and goodbye.
Overall:
A
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