Weird horror game Garten of Banban 3 has become a YouTube sensation - but is it any good?

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Wow, this is way harder to answer than it usually is. I would say skip Garten of Banban 3 if you’re looking for what might traditionally be called a “good” game. But on the other hand, if you’re looking for something almost inexplicably weird—like just so strange that you almost can’t help but enjoy it—then it might just be worth playing. As with previous entries in the series, Garten of Banban 3 isn’t going to blow you away with incredible graphics or tightly designed gameplay, but it keeps building up a bizarre, almost gonzo world populated by unsettlingly cuddly mascots with sinister intentions.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve spent two hours roaming the creepy kindergarten halls of Garten of Banban 3 so far. From a little bit of searching around and reading Steam reviews, it sounds like in that short time, I’ve managed to complete about three-fourths of the game’s content. Don’t go in expecting a super lengthy experience, in other words.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• A truly singular vision of horror. Based on screenshots and the YouTube hype alone, I went into Garten of Banban 3 expecting something like a Five Nights at Freddy’s clone, at least in terms of monster design. In truth, though, the crayon-drawing-inspired monstrosities of Garten of Banban feel totally unique. They reminded me less of the stilted animatronics of the Five Nights series and more of old claymation monsters from horror and adventure movies of the ’50s and ’60s. It’s a style that’s extremely goofy but undeniably grew on me the more I played.

• Intriguing world. As someone jumping right into the Garten of Banban series with this third entry, you may want to take my opinion on its wider narrative and lore with a grain of salt. That said, I was definitely surprised to find myself curious to learn more about what seems to be a kindergarten-turned-massive-underground-laboratory-full-of-horrific-experiments-gone-wrong. It’s not a concept that makes any sense, but it appealed to me in the same way as goofy SCP Foundation stories do.

• Feels like an old-school Half-Life mod. As best I can tell from some quick Google searches, it seems like Garten of Banban 3 was built on Unreal Engine 5. If that’s true, it’s all the more impressive that the game’s simple running and jumping have managed to perfect capture the feel of all my favorite janky Half-Life mods from the late ’90s. Maybe this is just my brain crossing its nostalgia wires because Garten of Banban 3 also had me exploring a weird underground facility, but whatever, either way I’m into it.

• Extreme weirdness. Garten of Banban 3 included a scene where I was sat in the middle of the back seat of a car between one big red creature and one small blue creature. The car was being driven by an octopus, and the passenger seat was occupied by a multicolored bird who let out ear-piercing squawks in response to any question. We were going to the beach. If this is the kind of thing you’re looking for, Garten of Banban 3 might be for you.

WHAT SUCKS

• Drone control. One of the key puzzle-solving mechanics in Garten of Banban 3 involves issuing orders to a little remote-controlled drone that you can send buzzing around to press buttons or break windows. Unfortunately, pointing this little buddy in the right direction is a lot less precise than I wanted, and there were certain scenarios—particularly when a puzzle had to be solved in a strict time limit—where I got very frustrated by how slow, clunky, and unresponsive the drone was.

• Puzzles in general. Beyond exploring Garten of Banban 3’s otherworldly school halls, the other main focus of the game is solving small, simple puzzles. Mechanical frustrations mentioned above aside, none of these puzzles are particularly difficult; they’re just also not particularly interesting. They feel less like well-thought-out pieces of this world and more like arbitrary challenges that have been dumped into the game to increase the play time.

• It’s short. Speaking of play time, as I mentioned in the “TIME PLAYED” section above, there’s not much to Garten of Banban 3. The first three entries in this series have come out at a brisk pace, and a fourth game is already planned for later this year. On the plus side, this means the games are cheap; Garten of Banban 3 is only $4.99 on Steam and a mere $2.99 on Android. But for my part, I’d almost rather play several games in the series stitched together into one longer experience. Maybe that will be a thing one day!

• Voice acting. No slight against Garten of Banban 3 developers Euphoric Brothers here. This game was made by a two-person team of young brothers who just want to put cool, weird stuff out into the world. I have nothing but respect for that mission and for the small budget they’re surely operating with. That said, the voice acting is the one spot where Garten of Banban 3’s low-budget style really works against it. If it had slightly better voice-over work—or even just a wider range of actors beyond, you know, these two brothers—the spoken dialogue could really sell the nightmarish, Lynchian oddities of this game.

• Extreme weirdness. Garten of Banban 3 included a scene where I was sat in the middle of the back seat of a car between one big red creature and one small blue creature. The car was being driven by an octopus, and the passenger seat was occupied by a multicolored bird who let out ear-piercing squawks in response to any question. We were going to the beach. If this isn’t the kind of thing you’re looking for, Garten of Banban 3 might not be for you.

💬 Are you planning to enroll your kids in Garten of Banban 3, or have the terrors of underfunding driven you away from this school for good? Let me know where you’re leaning in the comments!