Carto Reviews

Carto is a little girl that must find the way back to her grandmother, using the world as jigsaw pieces as she find them through 10 episodes, with an approximate duration of 30-40 minutes each.

Graphics (9/10)

No problem here. The game is beautiful and it has an excellent character design. They are all adorable. Looks like you're watching a Nintendo Switch game, but despite its appearance its not a child's game by its level of difficulty and by the amount of text you must read to finish it.

Plot (8/10)

The story is not epic but it is quite entertaining. Characters have a lot to say and you must hear them in order to advance in the game. Thank God you can speed up the dialogue so you don't waste a lot of time with that.

Gameplay (8/10)

Half of the game is like a classic RPG: you go around a place, meet people, talk to them and collect items that will be useful later. The other half is solving puzzles that can be very entertaining at first but then become quite complicated. The most agile minds will not find much of a challenge here, but the rest (like me) may have a difficult time playing.

Achievements (6/10)

If you want easy achievements forget it, this is not your game. The first 10 achievements are unlocked simply by playing, but the other 10 you might never find them, so get ready to play it with a guide of where and how to get each one. Especially the last two, as they require certain tasks in which you could fail and have to play the whole game a second time (or even three times). So if you love difficult achievements, you can change the rating from 6 to 10.



Final thoughts

Carto is a good game but its difficulty could scare players away. It can be frustrating sometimes, especially when you've already tried all the options you can think and it turns out the solution doesn't seem to make any sense, but the feeling of having found the answers is rewarding. This game could last more than 10 hours, whether they are fun or painful is up to you.

Carto is a game with a very basic plot; you fall off your grandmother's airship and have to navigate your way through different maps (Zones/areas). My time to beat was 8 hours and 8 minutes, this could easily be done quicker if you use a guide. Tldr at bottom.

Gameplay: Very fun can become confusing at times.

Throughout the game you collect map pieces, these allow you to change and rotate the map which grants access to new map tiles or progresses the story. It starts off quite simple however becomes harder as the game goes on, I generally didn't find any problems until I got to Chapter 9 so a walkthrough was used for this area. The gameplay remains the same throughout the whole game no new elements are added.

Art style & music: Cute and calming

Cartos art style is very cute and fits the game perfectly, it's The music is very calming and mesmerising, every zone has different music and like the art style fits perfectly.

Story: Basic but still quite nice

The basic plot as described above is finding your grandmother after you lose her. Throughout the game you meet various characters all of whom are memorable and fun character design, every character can be spoken to. Each area has something to do with finding clues of getting back to your grandmother and gathering clues.

Overall: Amazing experience

I had a great time playing Carto, I didn't really have any expectations when I started but was immediately enamoured within the first "puzzle" as I enjoyed the map mechanic and art style. I would definitely recommend downloading, as of writing this it's on Xbox Game Pass.

If achievements are what you're after you get 10 achievements worth 400G just for completing the game. The other 600G is unlocked by doing various hidden things throughout the chapters. I would definitely recommend looking at the secret achievements and the chapters they appear as some have no in game hints on how to get them.