Recent reviews by TsundereSky

An exceptionally cozy game that is everything and more what was promised on the long journey to Early Access. If you love the greats such as Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing New Horizons I think you will find an abundance of things to love about this game.

Firstly, as I am sure will draw most people to this game, the aesthetic - it's perfect what can I say. Not only is the sprite design for both the overworld and character portraits phenomenonal but they all have shockingly strong visual clarity. Oftentimes with pixel games I struggle to interpret what I am looking at either due to an overly simplified design or a far too complex design and this dev team has hit the sweet spot. If I had to make a complaint for visuals I could see the abundance of pastels and bright colors to be visually taxing on some players, especially over extended time. Perhaps an accessibility option to turn down saturation could help with this?

Now the gameplay - very classic farm simulator loop here. Water crops, take care of animals, explore the mines, and try to get back home before the day ends and your character passes out. This loop functions so well in Fields of Mistria I will often times say "just one more day then I'll take a break" five in game days in a row! Early game it can seem like your stamina doesn't get you very far, but with stat upgrades and your bag upgrades you'll realize your true enemy in this game is time. The days are simply not long enough for everything you will mentally checklist in your head. If you have more crops and animals that means less time to spend in the mines - if you go to the mines early and get into the swing of things it's very easy to waste the day away and discover you only have an in game hour to get back to your farm to put your animals away and sleep before you pass out. All of this isn't including how you simply cannot do all of these things and talk to every NPC once a day. For some players, this need to prioritize will be an incredibly gratifying dance of rotating a schedule for the week of what you need to do. That said I do see the complaint that it feels incredibly stressful to have a cozy game with such a strict daily time limit. I think giving players the option to either have an extra 4 hours each day (bed time at 6 instead of 2 a la Harvest Moon) or let the clock tick slower would give players the option to make each day a bit less race against the clock.

Nitpicks: really this is just a section where I suggest really minor things I've personally encountered that I think can be adjusted while in early access.

1. Bag Limits: While you can extend your bag fairly early on, I think the starting bag size of 10 slots when you have 5 tools is unnecessarily brutal. If there was a way to make it so tools are a separate inventory and don't take up space I personally would appreciate it.

2. Feeding animals: I love that I can hand feed my animals in this game and it is incredibly cute, but it feels like the devs have trolled me every time I pick up eggs from my chickens and milk from my cows only to accidentally feed them their own produce. I understand functionally that chickens do eat eggs, cows milk, etc but I don't think the game needs to make this a mechanic. Leave feeding the animals in (it's so cute) but please disable the ability to feed them their own product. The number of days I've had to restart cause I fed my cow one of the very limited milks I get was more than one.

Furniture placement: I really love the chest and shipping box in this system, but I am begging to be able to place chests and shipping crates around town. Being able to place them by the ocean or the mines would help a ton with how limited the early game inventory can feel. While it would also be fun to be able to decorate anywhere in town, I would be more than satisfied with just being able to place shipping containers anywhere.

All in all, for a game in "early access" you get a pretty full game experience here already. The game is beautiful, funny, and the cast has some of the most charm I've seen in a farming simulator. My nitpicks are all just nitpicks and I think the vast majority of people who give this game a shot will fall in love with it.

10/10 - can't recommend it enough

This game will become a key component of your personality