Absolutely fantastic hybrid farming/beat-em-up/RPG game! Typically when it comes to these hybrid games I expect the systems to be a bit diluted and simplified due to the split attention, but the mechanics for farming and combat in this were incredibly deep and robust, which when you combine that with the great story and character moments, this was an enthralling adventure that I'd consider a must-play for fans of this genre!

Something to note is that the game is very friendly and you don't really need to fret or bring in outside advice: it's expected and intended to know nothing about rice to mirror the protagonist's cluelessness and the game will naturally guide you through hints and unlocking past research to help you, and you don't have to optimize anything beyond the basics to still get acceptable gains. Combat is the same: while I like how deep and stylish it is, you can just wait and grind out some rice harvests to eventually get high enough stats to overpower any challenge.

Anyway, let's go over the three pillars of combat, farming and story:

Being an action junkie, combat was the star here for me. While the game is largely centered around RPG mechanics where you're gaining sheer statistical power through rice harvests and gear to be able to overcome challenges over time, the combat mechanics nevertheless allow so much freedom of expression that you can punch well above your weight with skillful play, all while being incredibly satisfying. While I could get into all the various combo routes, third strike style parries, OTGs, and so on, the unique core that it's all centered around is the Smash Bros-like physicality to the fighting where you can send enemies flying into each other to deal huge damage: it just never gets boring to, say, juggle an enemy into the air, spike them down into a crowd, pick them up with the grapple and chuck them into another group and just watch them all crash into each other like dominoes! It changes the whole dynamic: for example, when a boss summons a bunch of adds, don't fret, as they've just given you a bunch of ammo to throw back at them! Seriously, these are some character-action mechanics that would go toe-to-toe with any of the great contemporaries like Devil May Cry!

Farming was also very interesting in how in-depth it got to be. This isn't your standard farming game where you just plant seeds and water them and that's it: there are loads of steps for tilling, sorting, planting, harvesting, drying, and hulling with mini-games involved and ongoing careful management of water levels, temperature, spacing, weed/pest prevention, fertilizing and more that needs to be done that factors into how your rice will turn out in regards to what stats you're trying to increase, quality vs quantity, and so on. It can seem overwhelming at first, but it's all part of the process of learning the sweet science, and the game is quite generous at giving subtle hints and feedback, introducing new tools for automation, and always making sure you're progressing and never encountering any total disasters. As you start to research or uncover new tools and techniques, you'll feel like a survivalist genius!

Finally the game also provides some wonderful story and characters. Obviously the main draw of the story is watching Sakuna grow from a spoiled cheeky brat into a benevolent harvest goddess and it does a nice job at doing so, but it's also great to see how all the other characters grow in their own ways and become a true family. I'll admit it can be fairly standard anime fare in a sense, but even though I was making good progress with the game and could've finished it early, I wanted to stick around and go through all of the quest lines for the family. It's not all about the scripted plot beats either, as there are loads of subtle interactions that can happen: for example, I really liked how the food you choose for dinner would be modeled accurately and have the family reactively comment on it in various ways.

YOU CAN PET THE DOG AND PICK IT UP !

The combat is a lot of fun once you start unlocking some skills. Working the rice fields has been very enjoyable. Interesting combination of combat and leveling by perfecting your rice harvest. The writing is funny but I recommend the Japanese voice because to me the English voice acting is a little annoying. It satisfying to collect some good ingredients and sit down to a big meal with the family.