Over 60 hours into the game when I write this review.

This is a wonderful game, especially if you are a fan of similar titles like Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, etc. The art style is very endearing and can be absolutely gorgeous. It seems to take a direction similar to a pastel painting with its colors and environment design. The game is open world, and not 3/4 perspective, so it allows you to get a full view of the sweeping landscapes, distant ruins in the background, wide open fields, and to be down and personal with the town. The visuals alone, at least in this sub-genre, make the game worth it.

For me, when it comes to these types of games the characters are key to making the world feel wonderfully alive or extremely fake. In this case, the characters feel like they would actually exist in this town together, and that the environment they live in could actually produce people with their personalities. This game doesn't do anything too groundbreaking when it comes to NPC interactions and relationship building. Typical stuff like talking to them and giving them presents each day to raise their affection towards you. Although it does add sparring and a rock-paper-scissor mini game that can net you a few additional points per day, at the cost of stamina. The RPS is mostly RNG luck, and the sparring matches will become trivial in difficulty for the majority of the town's NPCs within an in-game year of decent gameplay. I was over level 40 by time I hit Spring of Year 2, and there are only two or three townsfolk with a level that high or higher.

Farming does not take center stage in this game. It's more about being a fabricator/machinist as you help your town improve and grow. You CAN farm, raise livestock, etc, but that is not the primary focus of the game. You will be working with ore, forges, grinder, and the workstations a lot more than dirt and seeds. I went through the entire first in-game year without ever doing any actual farming. So get ready to spend a lot of time in the mines, dungeons, cutting down trees, and breaking up boulders, as those are your primary sources for materials. It's a nice change, and it plays very well. This was the big thing that drew me to purchasing this game, as I was looking for a different take on the sub-genre.


Now for the cons:

Music wise is meh, nothing catchy or memorable, no night theme transitioning, predictable and typical battle music, and after a while you just tune it out. I'd love to replace it with some older Harvest Moon music, but that's more of a job for a mod than anything. Luckily there are sound settings that allows you to turn off just the music, if you so choose. By default the music is so loud it drowns out everything else, so some adjustment will be needed either way.

The growth of your homestead is quickly inhibited by a money barrier. Getting a level two home or a level two assembly station will make your property feel cramped very, VERY quickly. Especially when you consider all the cutters, grinders, and furnaces that you will need to add as well. The amount of additional space you get each time you purchase land is extremely small, and the cost starts to get steep, fast. The size of the farm after you buy your first 100,000 gol parcel feels like what it should be around the 50,000 gol range. It just feels way too gated and micro'd out. You have to make several very expensive purchases before you feel any sense of accomplishment, in regards to farm growth.

Be warned though, as of the time of this posting the game is slam full of bugs and issues. Despite it being `fully released` as well as having ports to consoles as well, the game runs more like a finished game is still a few months out. The vast majority of the game is voice acted, but there are plenty of holes where there obviously should be audio dialog. The dialog text is also way off script. Overall the same message is what comes across when comparing audio to text, but the differences can vary from a few words to entire sentences. I don't think a single day in-game has gone by without some misalignment of text and audio.

Controls seem to function about as well as any other title in this sub-genre of game play. Flying around in the mines is probably the only issue in this regard, but it's still manageable. Putting together some of the items on the Assembly Table can be difficult, either due to its size or getting the camera to just the right angle to highlight the certain piece you wish to install. Aside from that, all seems well.

There are actual game play bugs that can have major effects. There are some quests that require the use of the camera, and doing so is infuriating. There was one quest that took me two in game seasons to figure out how to get around (taking a picture of the Mayor) as it kept bugging out and not giving me credit for the photos. Occasionally more materials will be used than should be when giving gifts or handing in quest items if you have more than one of these in your inventory. Giving two items as a gift instead of one and only receiving reputation gains for one item is an example. Courting Ginger will test your level of masochism. Some of that is on purpose, such as her low reputation gains for gifts, shut-in lifestyle, and slow movement speed. The other problems wouldn't be much of a problem, but tied in with her natural settings makes them infuriating. Her walking speed means she is almost NEVER where she should be when starting a date, and if she isn't there it's considered your fault. Better go find her, fast! Certain things, such as dining, don't seem to work with her when on dates as well. This makes things even tougher when courting her, as dining and dates are the best source of relationship points for her. These are just a few off the top of my head. Nothing game breaking, but it certainly stands out on many occasions.

The developers have already stated they have plans to put in more quests and character development for certain NPCs that may have been neglected so far. Personally, I count this as a plus.

Feedback and bug reporting feels about as lackluster here as anywhere else, I suppose. Each of my issues were never acknowledged or any help or solutions suggested, but your mileage may vary. As I said before, this doesn't feel like a release level build of the game, and is more akin to what Bethesda or EA ships out on release. Here's hoping they polish it up soon, at the very least it should be done before any DLC is released.


Conclusion:

All in all, this game is great. Even with its bugs, which will hopefully get patched out in time, the game plays well. The characters are engaging, the world is gorgeous, and the game play is a nice new take on an old idea. I think with the right amount of polish, and certain care given to specific areas of the game, this could easily stand up to giants like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. If you catch this on sale, great. If not, it's totally worth the price tag (as of this review, it's $40 USD).

Edit:

I have nominated this game for Innovative Game Play Award for the reasons stated above.