#it's definitely a jrpg with a side of farm sim

[carnelianwings]

Harvestella Review

Short version: Fantastic OST, compelling story, inclusive gender options (you can choose Male, Female, or Nonbinary for your self insert protagonist), 9/10 would recommend.

(Long version behind the cut)

Long version: If you go into this game expecting 50+% farm sim and the remainder is action-adventure JRPG, you'll be disappointed. Based on where I am - as of the writing of this review I've completed the Main Story and I'm working on the Epilogue - the game is more like 70% JRPG, 30% farm sim. If I were to describe the game, it would be like taking a Star Ocean or a Tales game, deciding that the item crafting/cooking system wasn't ~enough with farming monsters for drops, and making it literal farming. You want money? You mainly get it by sending things off in your Shipping Box, with some supplemental income via side quests. You want healing? You gotta eat for that ... which uses ingredients from the crops you farm. But even if managing the farm eats up your time, the game is very well paced for that - the opening chapters go in seasonal order (starting in Spring) and I had plenty of time to both finish a chapter of the main story for the town themed after that season and completing all the side quests while doing farm "chores" every morning. Story is amazing, in my opinion. If you like Star Ocean's (especially SO3) or Tales' (namely Graces) storytelling, this will be right up your alley - I happen to love both, so there were points where I just Could Not Stop Playing. All I will say is don't let the first 3 chapters lull you into thinking this is a typical fantasy JRPG, if you do the side quests and pay attention, you'll quickly realize there's a lot more to the world building that meets the eye (that will also become significant as you keep going in the game). Also, Go Shiina's work on the OST is fantastic, really goes well with the story to help make the emotional hits hit harder, while giving you all the hype for boss battles. (SqEnix, free the OST from Japanese iTunes jail already, let me give you money for it!) I'd comment more on the story, but it's hard to say much about what I loved about the story without spoiling it - the late game reveals were really good and I loved every moment of it. Probably helped a lot that Aria's my favorite out of all the party members. Lack of voiced story dialogue wasn't actually a big deal to me, but I played a lot of 90s JRPGs that weren't voiced so it was a bit of a nostalgia trip in that sense. Combat is pretty straight forward, nothing truly special there, if anything I wish that "dash" Step skill wasn't a skill reserved just for melee classes but just a default combat maneuver (how old school action RPG of them - reminds me of the older Tales games where you had to unlock Backstep as a skill), There's some room for finesse, but a significant contributor to how well you do in fights is how well have you managed your farm (for in-combat healing/food buffs and how much money you have for weapon upgrades) and how much have you gotten to know your party members (for combat buffs/class skills). If you're like me and kept up with the farm and did every character story (you get prompts in-game in the form of letters) you'll probably be fine. If anything, combat's pretty much where I took a point off - it's pretty straightforward, but in my opinion this isn't a game you should be buying for the combat system, you should be buying it for the story. Customization is pretty basic (iirc just hair color and a few other simple things), but since I'd gone into this completely blind (I didn't even read a single review, just thought it looked interesting based on the Steam page) I wasn't expecting anything to begin with so it was more like a pleasant surprise to get the choice to have a few cosmetic changes. I like that they included nonbinary as a gender option - I know that alone got a friend of mine interested in the game. Personally I like the default outfit and I like how your outfit changes in combat to match your current class by adding in a "signature" aspect of the corresponding party member's outfit, but that's a YMMV. Overall, a fantastic game, one best played with as few expectations going in as possible, beyond knowing that it's a story-heavy JRPG with a fantastic OST and a side of farm sim. YMMV if you think it's worth it at full price, but in my opinion, definitely worth it on sale.

#harvestella #review #i can't remember the last time I stayed up until 3 am playing a game and went oops #and i did that multiple times with harvestella either as a One More Day or I Need To Know What Happens Next #definitely one of the best games i've played recently #sqenix messed up on marketing this as a farm sim with a side of jrpg #it's definitely a jrpg with a side of farm sim #the focus is the story not the farm sim

[lunahearts]

Harvestella Thoughts: so what is this game, anyway?

Note: this post contains minor spoilers for the game, mostly involving overall themes and some allusions to the content of some side quests.

Well, it is definitely cute, if nothing else

Harvestella is a strange game. Or at least, I think it is a game made strange by its marketing and the genre expectations surrounding it. There’s been a lot of conversation about what genre it IS, both following the demo as well as the full release. 

Is it a farm sim? An old school jrpg? Rune factory but with the balance inverted? Stardew but worse?

Yes. Kind of. Also... no.

The answer is easy enough, really. I can’t believe other people had so much trouble. Allow me to summarize the game in an easily digestible blurb for you all:

It’s a slow build 7/10 farm sim jrpg combo without the depth of most farm sims or the difficulty of most rpgs that also delivers a fantastically satisfying resource management experience and one of the best fucking stories I’ve seen all year. 

Easy, right? You get it.

Emo gets it

Hmm.

See I think the thing about Harvestella is that the things that make it so good are mostly either a) significant spoilers, or b) tied to an overall experience more than individual components. It really is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

And I don’t even want to claim that the whole will work for everyone! 

If you are looking for a traditional farm sim where you can immediately dig into the systems of while progressing story at your own pace, this isn’t it. If you are looking for something that gives you access to the majority of its charming characters and hub town in the opening days of the tutorial and gives you the freedom to get right on to wooing your favorite, this isn’t it. If you are looking for intense action rpg combat, or deep, customizable strategy, this... yeah. Isn’t it.

And of course, if you aren’t interested in a particular brand of sentimentality - the ever growing compassion of the story and its messages about the importance of patience, collaboration, and the choice to hold tight to hope even amidst the very grounded struggles it presents to its characters - then its not for you.

However, if you ARE interested in that message, oh boy do I have a game for you.

And if you like a sharply written plot, layers of slowly unfolding lore, and an entire buffet of character stories AND side quests that explore questions of grief, trauma, chosen family, the slow work of technological advancement, estrangement, terminal illness, environmental preservation, redemption, generational trauma, living with unanswerable questions, identity, what identity even MEANS in the face of all of the above, and allergies... please please consider giving Harvestella a try.

Pretend that ‘hay fever’ here is a metaphor for ‘people judging Harvestella based on misguided assumptions’

And that’s not even getting into the gameplay, which itself offers a lot more depth and complexity than it appears to within the first days. It probably takes about the first third of the game for it to establish all the basic systems you will be interacting with on a daily basis while working through the story. I did call it a slow build for a reason. 

I don’t think its the most engaging farm sim, or the deepest jrpg, but it is a game that, both in its story and its systems, encourages and rewards engaging with every mechanic and gameplay loop and concept it has to offer. It rewards exploration, it rewards strategy, it rewards optimization, it rewards preparation. It rewards attention. It doesn’t necessarily require those things, but trust me when I say there is a lot more there to dig into than “some crops grow in just one day” or “I can’t dodge enemy attacks.”

So what is Harvestella? Honestly... it’s just a good game. Truly, truly, a good and worthwhile game. It is rich and engaging, and has a ton to offer: beautiful art and charming characters, a FANTASTIC soundtrack, tons of gorgeous and lushly detailed areas to explore, and hours and hours of twists and turns to enjoy. It oozes care and love, and especially in some areas towards the end of the main story, a level of polish and presentation that took my breath away.

It’s its own thing. Give it a try.

Also like not to flex on Rune Factory but you can actually choose to partner with the MILF in this one

#harvestella #square enix #farm sim #jrpg #game recommendations #< im sure like no one ever looks in that broad of tags but I just want to get it out there u know

[xpiester333x]

I finished Harvestella!

I feel like promotion for this game set expectations that disappointed people when it was finally released. A lot of people thought it would be a cute Final Fantasy-esque farming sim. It is not. Not really.

I went into this game with mediocre expectations. I read the reviews and watched some friends play for a while and just thought it looked cute but basic and didn't expect much from it. I was pleasantly surprised though.

The farming sim part is definitely prevalent but kind of secondary to the story. I feel like until I was a decent way into the story I didn't do much with my farm at all but that may just be the way I played.

The story itself was no epic tale but it was pretty interesting, in that very JRPG way. Enough so that I wanted to know what was going to happen next. The characters were charming, and the game gives each one a deeper story through character side quests.

There is a decent amount of content in the game. Aside from main story and farming, there's quite a few side quests that tell little stories that were interesting on their own. There's also a "deep dungeon" of sorts, crafting, fair amounts of exploration. Plenty enough to do. The story alone might only take 15-20 hours to beat but I took almost 70 hours to beat the game because of all the side tracking I was getting into. And even now that the main game is done I could easily put a lot more time into it finishing up some of the tasks I was to finish.

The combat is extremely simplistic, but for someone like me who sucks at action games that worked out really well. I didn't feel like I was bored with it at any point, and there are a LOT of classes/jobs you can switch between (you can "carry" 3 jobs with you at all times and you can switch any of those out any time you're in a safe area). The fight mechanics were simple but pretty cool, especially on some of the bosses.

I'm mixed on the graphics of the game. The characters give off a PS2 era vibe and the areas are very static, but some of the environments were visually stunning. Like, to the point I would pause my playing just to soak in the view.

Overall this feels like a game that, while very simple, a lot of love went into. My final consensus is that it's pretty cozy, so if you enjoy cozy games and will appreciate a JRPG storyline, it's definitely worth playing. HOWEVER despite how charming I found the game, I still don't think it's worth the $60 price tag. But if you can find it on sale for the $40-45 then definitely worth it.

#harvestella #pie plays #game reviews

[secretgamergirl]

We really need 1:1 time passage in games.

I play a lot of games. I particularly play a whole lot of RPGs, strategy things, survival games, and these all tend to be games that try to create an extra sense of immersion with hunger, thirst, and a day night cycle. And WOW do they ever end up doing the exact opposite with the implementation!

Like, let’s just start with food. If I am playing a survival game, and I choose not to eat for a while, my little hunger meter will bottom out, and I will start taking damage then eventually die. This tends to take like, one real life hour/in-game day, give or take to kick in, and then death comes within like, maybe 5 minutes if they’re generous? And I stave this off by... usually finding, killing, cooking, and eating, 2 entire turkeys per real hour/in-game day.

So... what the hell is any of that!?

So we have hunger, and we’re representing it as this slowly draining meter you have to keep an eye on. Already, that’s just weird. In my experience, you can go an entire day, not eating a damn thing, and not feel a thing out of the ordinary. But when you do actually get hungry, it can be overwhelming and impossible to ignore (have you eaten yet today by the way? My meal schedule’s gotten totally weird). Nothing about that makes sense to simulate as a slowly lowering bar. If you want realism, you have absolutely no onscreen hunger meter, and then like every 4-24 hours or so you have some incredibly distracting hunger indicator kick in and stay kicked in. Like, activate rumble packs and leave’em going at a steady pulse sort of annoying. And it gets worse when you’re actually preparing food.

Also feeling hungry is not an early indicator that you are going to suddenly die of starvation, or even that you’re anywhere near that point. I had dinner 6 hours ago, I’m a little hungry now. It varies a lot, but actually starving to death can take upwards of going TWO WHOLE MONTHS without any food at all. Like if we’re representing that as a meter, “hungry” kicks in when it drops to 99% full. Starvation is not a particularly common cause of death. If you’re dying of starvation, either someone is intentionally starving you to death, or some horrific catastrophe has just wiped out completely absolutely every potential food source in an area you somehow cannot wander your way out of even if you have months to do so. Relevant real world fact- Any time you see stuff about people dying of starvation, that’s never “farming just is not a thing that works in this area,” it’s “some malicious tyrant is actively preventing these people from accessing food in a deliberate effort to cause them to starve.” It’s really not actually a concern in any sort of survival story, unless we’re going real long term.

Meanwhile, have game designers ever actually, like, eaten food? Like I said, 2 whole turkeys per real hour/game day seems to be the going standard and like... have you had a turkey? I live in America, there is this tradition on Thanksgiving to go get a turkey, spend a day cooking it, and serving it as part of a meal served to one’s whole extended family. You’ve got that one turkey (granted, generally with a lot of side dishes) feeding like... a dozen people, easily. And at the end of the day, you’ve only MAYBE collectively made your way through like half a breast. You carve up a bunch more and send everyone home with a ton of leftovers. Then you’ve still got this giant mountain of turkey left, and you’re eating it for like the next week until you’re completely sick of turkey and throw the rest out, with plenty of meat entirely uneaten on the bird. Or hey, do you eat hamburgers? You know how the standard for a really kinda too big to responsibly be ordering it hamburger is “a quarter-pounder?” Which refers to the 0.25 lbs. of meat on the bun? Just quickly googling “beef weight” and copying the preview text from the oddly named first hit, on beef2live.com... “An average beef animal weighs about 1200 pounds and has a hanging hot carcass weight (HCW) of about 750 pounds.“ I can’t honestly say I know what “hanging hot carcass weight” is and I kinda doing want to, but I’m assuming that’s how much you have to work with after stripping out all the bones and organs and such. Multiply that by 4 to get how many oversized burgers you get out of one “beef animal” (why does it not say cow? I’m growing increasingly unsettled)- 3000 burgers. Give or take. You go smack that one Mnecraft cow with your sword, you should be fine for like 5 years. At least assuming we’re not simulating food spoilage. And if we are, HEY THAT TAKES SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER THAN ONE DAY, 2 IF YOU SALT IT!

And I mean, on top of that, we’ve got this whole standard I keep citing of 1 real world hour/1 in-game day. That kinda seems to be one of the more common standards for the passage of time video games use. That or 1 minute=1 hour. And I... really don’t understand why we have these scales?

Like, the earliest example of a day/night cycle in a game is Dragon Quest 3, where 1 steps on the over world map=12 minutes passing, or 120 steps=1 day. That’s a weird scale I’m having to use, but that’s because as the most traditional of JRPGs, DQ3′s sense of both time AND space are super abstracted and walking a short distance across the world map is this super compressed and simplified conveyance of a big long epic journey through the untamed wilderness. The first games I can think of offhand to really do it as a real time elapsed ratio thing are like... The Sims and GTA 3? Let me look at each of those in turn in a bit here.

So, The Sims has to pass days pretty quick, because that’s like, the whole idea. We’re watching this little household drama unfold in a compressed time scale... but the scale is really messed up? Like, we start off pretty simple. Sims work their shifts of like 9-5 on the in-game clock, need an appropriate amount of sleep... but then MOST things have timing based off having animations play at a reasonable pace, which is to say, 1 to 1 time, not 1 to 60. It takes like 3 in-game minutes for a Sim to get up out of a chair, several more minutes to walk to the kitchen and even start cooking, altogether just getting up, making a meal, cleaning up, and sitting back down is going to end up being this hours long affair, most of that being travel time from one room to another. It’s weird, and practically speaking you end up having them eat one meal, use the toilet once, and take a shower once per in game day, because less than that problems occur, and more than that, it’s a huge pain. And forget conversations. Those are like 12 hour commitments.

And then we have GTA3, where 1 real minute=1 in game hour... and this isn’t tied to anything in-game at all really. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, nothing really has business hours to deal with, the whole day/night cycle is just there to give you a nice cycling change of scenery... and also again, breaks immersion, because the animation speed is 1:1. According to a video I just watched, walking end to end across the map of GTA3 takes a full 48 in-game hours (121 in GTA5). And I mean... there’s races, and high speed chases, and all this other stuff that according to the in-game clock are at such slow speeds you can barely tell anything’s moving. It’s weird and arbitrary! And also unnecessary! Like, I’m pretty sure I sank at least 80 hours into my first playthrough of GTA3. I definitely spent enough time cruising around any given island that if time passed in a 1:1 ratio, I’d still see what everything looked like at every time of day. And hell if you rigged it up to a real world clock I could plan around that, do all the cool missions right at sundown.

But I mean, also, there’s these things called movies and TV shows? You may have heard of them, because it’s where games get a whole bunch of terms they use all the time. Like camera, and scene. So the thing there is, when, say, a movie switches to a new scene, they’ll often arbitrarily jump the day/night cycle ahead by several in-movie hours, or even days, so the lighting is appropriate to what’s going to happen in that scene. You can actually just... do that in games, too. It’s OK. Nobody’s going to stop you or say it’s breaking immersion. I talk to this guy to start this mission at what’s clearly noon, then we fade to back, and I come back out onto the street late at night so I can do this daring nighttime raid. That’s.. OK. You can do that. Honest. No need to have the sun doing crazy fast laps in the background.

Anyway, other games since have all copied that time scale, because blindly copying things from GTA3 was kinda... how people made games for a good stretch of time (and yeah yeah yeah, Elder Scrolls was probably already doing it, whatever... hell so was Robinson’s Requiem I’m pretty sure, and Drakken I know was paced something like that). But anyway, we mixed that sort of time scale with Survival Gameplay and we’re just kinda mashing these problems together. We’re doing everything in this one to one time scale, but the in-game clock is running at like 60 times that, and our already ridiculous food intake needs are downright absurd, and suddenly we’re destroying absolutely all life on sight to sate our ever-present ravenous hunger (and possibly never sleeping).

And like... survival games don’t actually need that? Like the interesting bits of the angle are finding sources of things like clean water and shelter so you don’t die of exposure once the sun’s down and stuff. And these are things you really just need to do once and you’re set. You could... basically set up a whole game, running in real time, where these are early potential fail states. Get some kind of shelter set up within the first 5 hours or so, sleep to advance straight to the next day after pulling that off, then you have like 3 days total to find drinkable water, and... honestly at that point we’re talking like a good 45 minutes of gameplay and you could really end it there, or start your last goal. But instead, no, we’re making some kinda crude axe/bow and killing everything to eat.

Not only is it not realistic, not only does it take me out of the experience by checking the math, the whole affair feels kinda like I’m being put through someone’s weird hyper-masculine cargo cult fantasy of what it would have been like if they grew up Hunting With Dad and like.... OK people who actually do that still kill like one animal, then drag it home, throw it in a big fridge, and eat it for quite a long time, or sell it, or leave it to rot because they’re just really into ending the lives of innocent creatures and don’t want weird gamey meat at all.

So yeah, just let time be time, and don’t ever actually make me eat if we’re trying for some kind of gritty realism thing. I really don’t get hungry nearly that often and fill up quick.

#game design #survival