Grow Up

Grow Up starts with the simple pleasure of being a small, awkward robot in a huge alien playground, then keeps finding new ways to turn a distant landmark into a climbing problem. B.U.D.’s hand-over-hand climbing and limited jetpack make every tall route feel a little risky, especially when a bad slip sends you back toward a tele-router.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Grow Up is at its best when you pick a faraway point on the planet, spot a possible route, and start making a messy ascent. B.U.D. climbs by alternating his left and right hands, with a little swinging needed to find the next hold. It is a deliberately physical way to move through the world. You are not simply pressing toward a ledge and watching a clean animation take over, so every high climb carries tension.

That same awkwardness is the source of both the charm and the irritation. B.U.D. has ragdoll-like movement and does not stop on a dime, which makes him feel like a robot barely holding himself together. When you recover from a near fall, it is funny and satisfying. When he tumbles because you misjudged momentum, or because a climb goes wrong high above the ground, the joke can wear thin. Tele-routers soften the punishment by serving as checkpoints and fast-travel points, but you still need some patience for the game’s clumsy rhythm.

The larger world is a meaningful improvement over Grow Home. Rather than pushing through one mostly vertical space, you can roam connected areas and places suspended in the air or water, then tackle the nine scattered ship parts in your own order. P.O.D.’s map and waypoint beam give that freedom enough direction without turning exploration into a rigid checklist.

Plants are where the sandbox side becomes more than scenery. Scanning the 24 types fills out the Floradex 3000, but seeds also let you create useful tools, including bounce plants, launchers, climbable stalks, lights, and boosters. Add a regenerating jetpack, unlockable movement options such as the glider and flower parachute, and crystals that extend jetpack use, and there is usually more than one way to solve a height problem. The optional P.O.D. challenges and suit unlocks are good reasons to keep experimenting after you have found a workable path.

Graphics

The planet offers more variety than the first game’s single upward climb, moving between different climates and vegetation as well as caves, volcanoes, islands, and floating locations. B.U.D.’s small robot body remains a natural focal point against those oversized spaces, which suits a game built around making a tiny character cross enormous vertical gaps.

Story

The story is a clean excuse to get B.U.D. back into the wilderness. After M.O.M. is damaged in a meteor storm and crashes on the planet, B.U.D. needs to recover nine ship parts and restore the expedition ship. It gives the open world a practical end goal without pretending that the plot is the main attraction.

B.U.D. and M.O.M. carry over from the first game, while P.O.D. joins in as the observation droid that helps track locations and challenges. The setup has an appealingly light sci-fi tone: a botanical expedition goes sideways, and a little utility robot is left to make the best of an unfamiliar planet.

Do not come in expecting a dense character drama or a story full of twists. Grow Up uses its premise to motivate travel, discovery, and recovery. That is enough here, because the memorable moments are likely to be the ones you create while trying to reach some absurdly distant piece of wreckage.

Overall Experience

Grow Up earns its sequel status by taking the odd, hands-on climbing of its predecessor and giving it a much wider playground. The scattered objectives, fast travel, plant tools, and extra traversal abilities make it easy to abandon one route, chase a new idea, and still feel like you are progressing. That sense of self-directed exploration is the game’s strongest quality.

Its limits are equally clear. B.U.D.’s unstable movement is intentional, but intentional frustration is still frustration when you want a precise landing or a clean climb. The game asks you to accept accidents, recover from them, and laugh more often than you rage. If that sounds exhausting, the open-world freedom will not fully erase the annoyance.

For the right mood, though, Grow Up is a warm, inventive platformer about turning a planet into your personal climbing frame. Give it a chance if you enjoy experimenting with physics, finding your own routes, and treating the occasional spectacular fall as part of the adventure. The payoff is not perfect control. It is the moment a shaky plan involving a seed, a boost, and a desperate grab actually works.