Castle Renovator

While I very much appreciate the efforts game developers put in to entertain (and maybe educate) us, Ultimate Games' Castle Renovator falls flat in early every way. If one of the selling points is that you can "Choose the shapes and designs of flags and pennants," you know you're in trouble.

I like Castle Renovator. There is a lot of potential in what is presented. However, considering that this game was released in late 2022 for the PlayStation and Xbox, you would think most of the jank would have been addressed before the devs decided to port this to Switch. There is something missing in Castle Renovator that is hard to pinpoint exactly. It’s the heart of whatever made House Flipper so fun to play. The comedy and weirdness that made Powerwash Simulator what it was, the smoothness of movement and the beauty of the graphics that just isn’t there in Castle Renovator. There were a lot of interesting ideas here. Little mini-games to unlock new furniture, interesting designs to make a home with, and a funny premise to tie it all together. Castle Renovator could have been a ton of fun; it has much to do, a small price tag, and okay graphics. I think it just needs some more playtesting and a little more love. I’m not saying fixing the jank is simple, but it would be worth it. Castle Renovator feels like someone put a lot into it; it just fell short of the mark a little. I look forward to returning to this title in a year or two. Hopefully, the devs will have read all the criticism and implemented some changes by then.

Sadly, I have to say the lack of challenge variety, the poorly distributed commands and the citizens who live [only] in the ideal plane reduce the qualities Castle Renovator could have. Despite that, for those who can ignore these issues, there's a good variety of resources to enrichen the building creation, so it might be some good entertainment for those who love creation and decoration.

Yet another “construction sim” that has you performing simple tasks to try to turn your [insert thing here] around

Even if Castle Renovator delivered on exactly what its name promised, I have a hard time imagining it'd be much more fun. There's a way to make these job sims fun, and a way to make them feel like a dull slog, and every design decision here ensures that this game falls squarely in the latter camp.

The idea of cleaning, repairing, and building ancient European houses and castles was an appealing one.  Unfortunately, Castle Renovator fails to be enjoyable by any metric.

Although the game has potential, it falls short overall due to a lack of proper care and clunky gameplay.