Just Crow Things Review (PC) – Not Quite As the Crow Flies

The chaotic animal game genre gets another entry with the “sandbox-y adventure game” Just Crow Things from Unbound Creations. Play as a crow that explores the world beyond her nest as she helps out fellow critters with tasks across nine different levels plus one final showdown with some no-good crows. 

Like any good corvid, this game knows what it wants to be fun and that’s pretty much everything—including the menu. It definitely delivers on its sandbox elements with interactables that allow for chaos or messing about in levels. Yet the more typical adventure game elements such as story, tasks, and even humor dampen the fun as they feel more like a hindrance to overcome to unlock the actual sandbox mode of the game.

Just Crow Things definitely delivers on some fun shenanigans as a ”sandbox-y” game. But instead of flying high on that concept, it is stuck in an unsuccessful balancing act being an adventure and a sandbox game.

As the Crow Flies

Where Just Crow Things shines is its variety of levels and some really interesting mechanics as it showcases its exploration and sandbox side.

Exploration starts off in an overworld where the player can freely fly around and goof off. It can be a pretty fun break between levels as there are hidden cosmetics that award curiosity. 

From the overworld, the player can select a level which will contain tasks that need to be completed to achieve a certain amount of points (or “Crowputation”). Completing the typical adventure game tasks such as finding missing critters or doing a race can be cut-and-dry, but can showcase some good old-fashioned sandbox chaos if the player hunts down items and has some creativity. 

The items are definitely a highlight of this game as it showcases some really entertaining mechanics that can either be used to fulfill tasks or just be a little chaotic. Poop can be modified by eating certain items like a can of beans that allows the player to do a fast dash with a fart instead of pooping. Other notable items include a paintbrush that allows you to scribble everywhere and a camera that adds a trippy front-facing view of the world as the player takes photos. However, these notable items only show up in certain levels as they tend to be attached to specific tasks for easier (and funner) completion.

It is a shame that certain items only show up in specific levels, but that’s where the New Game+ comes in. With it, a player can go back to any level and spawn almost any item to goof off with, giving a lot of fun items time to shine and more freedom for the player to have fun in their own way. There are even some new tools that definitely add for more chaotic fun.

Winging It with Writing

As with many adventure games, Just Crow Things has a narrative and a sense of humor that runs through the game. Unfortunately, the writing has certain humor and characterizations that feel forced and don’t add much to the overall experience, making dialogue very skippable. This isn’t helped by the story which very loosely attempts to tie up the main game as the player traverses through the levels despite having a pretty solid premise for what it aims to be.

References to other creative works from the 90s and the 2000s get a small chuckle, though most of them are made through settings or non-dialogue ways. Unfortunately, its dialogue feels very millennial which is very hit-or-miss in its humor based around distinct exaggerations and its purposeful misspellings like “hooman” and “thank”. There’s even certain creatures on an island level that end their sentences with “brudda” or “mon” which is off-putting to the point that it might make a player say, “Really? In this day and age?” These writing tropes haven’t aged well. Humor in games has evolved beyond them and can be turn-offs for players nowadays.

The game’s writing also comes off as an after-thought in the two main story beats that fall to the wayside in many levels, making them forgettable until they pop up again. These are on top of what is a pretty good premise of just a crow exploring the world and helping out their fellow animals.

Some dastardly crows steal the player’s sunglasses and hint at something bigger in the tutorial level, but aside from maybe some bits of easily-skipped dialogue, there’s little reference to them until half-way through the game when they are reintroduced. It’s only in the final showdown that they have any real importance to the gameplay. There’s also a magpie that thinks they’re smarter than you. Some tasks in a handful of tasks in  levels relate to that B-plot, but it doesn’t add much even at the end of the game. 

It’s not helped when certain levels also have their own narratives in them which outshine the larger plots. One level focuses on helping out two warring kingdoms of dogs and cats while another is a Wind Waker homage of collecting different macguffins. There’s also some that have more of a theme going for them like a spooky Edgar Allan Poe level, but they don’t tie back to the plots in any way either. What they do accomplish is being fun and still fitting with the overall “explore and help out” premise. It almost feels as though without additional overarching plotlines that the game could have been a bit freer.

Final Thoughts

There is fun to be had being a small crow wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting world below them—all in the name of helping out the downtrodden and fed-up animals. 

Just Crow Things is a game that has a lot going on with certain elements showcased better than others. As with many games with sandbox elements, it’s definitely one for the creative players and can be a hoot playing around with items.

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