If the yr of Luigi was 2013, then the yr of the farming RPG is 2023. With us three quarters of the way in which into the yr, we’ve already seen over a dozen farming RPG video games throughout a variety of platforms, with no less than six of those already releasing on the Nintendo Swap and nonetheless extra to return. As there are such a lot of farming RPGs to select from, it must be powerful to face out from such a crowded house. Fortunately, Phoenix Labs have come via with one thing nicely value testing in case you’re a fan of the style.
Issues begin off familiarly sufficient via the character customisation suite. Characters are made in a similar way to Miis, the place there are a restricted variety of facial options to select from that feels as if it’s designed to not overwhelm anybody. Selecting a physique kind and selecting your pronouns, you might be then instantly thrown into the world of Azoria.
Issues begin to really feel a tad unfamiliar, as moderately than going with the acquainted trope of inheriting the farm out of your useless relative, Mayor Merritt welcomes you to the island, and summarises the story up till now, the place your character has managed to seek out themselves on the island regardless of an enormous variety of pure disasters presently happening stopping anybody from leaving or coming into the island. It’s a refreshing tackle the same old farming RPG by including a contact of magic and fantasy to what may have been a drained previous story.
Upon studying your destiny, you might be given a homestead and a few farmland to start your journey in Azoria. The native NPCs all take an curiosity in you and really feel as if you may deal with a lot of their life issues seeing that you just made it via literal disasters to get to the island within the first place. Fae Far units itself aside with an built-in story and questline that goes past fetch quests and studying the sport mechanics. As you discover the world, you discover increasingly going improper with the land and it’s as much as you to construct your abilities and unlock new talents as a way to resolve the mysteries across the island.
Lots of the early quests are designed to assist with understanding the best way to farm, store and discover the various locations of Azoria. As you progress via the primary questline, the residents turn into extra personable, and the quests turn into extra about saving Azoria and bringing peace again to the land.
The story will not be as gripping as your typical fantasy RPG, although it was sufficient to maintain issues from getting overly repetitive and boring. As somebody who has been turned off by so many farming simulators doing the identical factor with a unique aesthetic, this was very welcome.
The gameplay itself in all fairness tight, with a set top-down view permitting a sizeable viewing angle permitting you to see sufficient of your environment with out compromising element. Transferring world wide feels easy, and the addition of a leap button allows you to go nearly anyplace you want to. You may leap fences and swim via rivers and lakes, and utilise magic mushrooms (no, not these) to bounce excessive within the air and transfer up cliff faces with the best of ease.
Discovering issues are a cinch as a result of capacity to enter a map and add a waypoint to a location or any NPC character within the sport. As soon as I completed sure quests, the waypoint system the sport implements allowed me to simply discover somebody once I wanted to. All your foremost instruments used for farming, mining, and foraging all take up the identical stock slot. This lets you simply hit the A button subsequent to a tree, rock, seed or plant, and your character simply is aware of what software to make use of with out having to change instruments. You do want to change to your fishing line, bug web and magic wand, nonetheless. Little high quality of life inclusions like these makes a lot of these sport much more accessible and fewer of a chore to play.
As there are such a lot of fantasy components woven all through the sport, Fae Farm’s greatest theme is the magic. Absolutely anything you are able to do within the sport entails magic ultimately or one other. Moderately than embrace farming equipment into the sport to assist with sure components, you’ll be able to construct your magic talents as a way to assist out along with your crops. Magic can be utilized for issues similar to rising your crops sooner and mass-harvesting to save lots of time. You may utilise magic within the mines as nicely throughout fight and mining which makes these lots much less tedious as nicely.
There are some facets of Fae Farm that aren’t as polished as the remaining. The opening self-importance emblem for Phoenix Labs stutters when booting up the sport. When opening menus and stock screens, I usually find yourself urgent the button a number of instances it appears like nothing occurred for the few seconds it takes to load the overlay. The battling achieved within the caves isn’t probably the most thrilling, and I’d have appreciated to have seen some extra RPG-like components right here. General, although, most of this stuff don’t appear to be one thing an replace can’t repair sooner or later.
Sadly, as I’m reviewing the sport previous to launch, I haven’t been in a position to attempt native or on-line multiplayer. What I can say about multiplayer although is that it was a foremost point of interest of growth all through the creation of the sport. It’s one thing I’m eager on testing although, as the sport offers off an Animal Crossing kind really feel, and I loved enjoying multiplayer in that with my household.
When offered with the prospect of reviewing a farming sport, I actually thought I’d be in for a tough time. After Stardew Valley mainly perfected the style, not too many different video games supplied a lot of a distinction.
Fae Farm breaks the mould by introducing a wide range of components that work within the context of a farming RPG, whereas on the similar time introduces many fantasy components that simply make this totally different sufficient to face out from the gang. There are some technical hiccups that may be ironed out in future patches, however even in case you’re sick of farming in your Swap, I do suggest checking this one out.
Score: 4/5