Recent reviews by Melody Knight

This is Animal Crossing but no Zipper T. Bunny or constantly breaking tools. Buy it before Nintendo decides to nail Level 5 for making a better game than them.

You play as an alchemist who gets swept up in fighting demons and saving the town from a corrupt politician. It's a lovely story with a cast of characters with amazing chemistry and interactions. The character creator is really neat, but I wish there were more colors to choose from. The puzzles are fun and challenging. The sound track and voice acting are both great. Fun fact, Laura Post, the voice actor of Ann, is also the english voice actress for Kasumi Yoshizawa/Violet from Persona 5 Royal. Anyway, if you're looking for a good visual novel with puzzle solving, give this one a look. :) Victoria is best girl.

Whoa! Looking cool, Joker!

Sims 1's resolution can't be fixed unless you mess with your monitor's resolution outside of game. Sims 2 crashes upon making a family, and both Sims 1 and Sims 2 crash when you alt-tab out. Unacceptable. This is cheap, even for you, EA. They better patch this.

Take Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns (Except it's only one town in this case), make it 2D pixel art with a Sailor Moon aesthetic to the character portraits, and add a splash of magic and combat and you get this game.

Pros:
+Art style is cute, and the soundtrack is lovely
+Cheaper than Stardew Valley
+Several hours of content to do (Even with Early Access at the time of this review)
+The towns are lively, and there's always something going on. I recommend checking out the inn every Friday after 6pm. :)
+Characters feel very fleshed out and have solid personalities and backstories.
+You can customize your character at any time, including changing your name, appearance, and pronouns. Not just your clothes.
+No time limits on your requests
+At the time of this review: No DLC!
+Hours of content

Cons:
- Days move too fast, and there's no way to adjust the night/day cycle
- Mechanics are the same as any other standard farming sim
- Is a bit more on the easy side, like Sun Haven or Wylde Flowers
-Crashes sometimes, so save at your diary often.
- Early access

Pokemon fans: You deserve better. And better is here. That, or go play Pokemon Insurgence. Actually, if you want a good story, go play Pokemon Insurgence, Palworld's story is pretty lacking.

Anyway, you can make sheep work a palsphere sweatshop, and have fire foxes smelt ingots for you. You can lead a small party of gun-toting leaf monkeys into battle, and ride a fire lion into the sunset. It's a good time, unless survival-crafting games make you see red. And if you have reservations about the rumors about animal abuse or slavery, just remember: The inspiration for this game is baby's first dogfighting simulator. One of the games had you fight an organization that had the end goal of freeing every pokemon from their trainers. (Pokemon Black and White. Team Plasma.)

8/10 would fire guns off the back of my Nitewing at syndicate members trying to shoot at innocent Melpacas again.

Overpriced DLCs. Buggy mess, and the switch port is unplayable as of this review. There are too many mechanics, and a lot of them are very shallow. Don't buy this game.

All in all, I do recommend RF5 with a couple of asterisks attached. On the one hand, RF4 has a better cast and more content, for 20$ less. On the other hand, I don't have to use mods to marry a girl as a girl. If you're new to the harvest sim genre, you should pick up Stardew Valley first and see if the genre is right for you. If you're new to the Rune Factory series, you should pick up 4 first and see if you like it. If you're a bit of a graphics or challenge snob, maybe check out Serin Fate instead.

However, in between Rune Factory 4 and 5, the original publishing company of the Rune Factory series, Neverland, went bankrupt in 2013. I wouldn't be surprised if in the move to XSEED/Marvelous some corners had to be cut in order to get a new game out in time with the new generation. Keeping this in mind, on a decent PC it runs better than on the Switch.

If you're thirsting for an all-star voice acting cast with a cliche, but heartfelt story, and some of the best character design seen in a modern JRPG, look no further. There might not be any non-binary option without mods, but if you were turned off by the overly femme models of Harvestella's male-leaning characters, Ares is masc enough to scratch that itch. It's got cute farm dragons, and a wide array of cute monsters to tame and raise on your farm. There's also a werefox bachelor, a literal god bachelor, a werewolf bachelorette, and a succubus bachelorette if you have certain interests. You can also have someone else ride with you on certain monsters, so you can ride a blue-nine tailed fox into the sunset with your favorite villager if you want. Despite its flaws, Rune Factory 5 is a gem of a game, and you should consider checking it out if you've been around the farming sim block a bit and need something familiar, but also new.

Bring your friends for minecraft but better. It's got classes, bosses, an actual story (fight back corruption/crimson), a variety of actually interesting npcs to befriend, better fishing, and gorgeous pixel art. Best of all, it's still coming out with banger updates. So what are you waiting for?

This game is basically a chill town builder with a slice of farming sim and a dash of lite dating sim on top with a cute story and endearing characters. If you're looking for your next cute casual game, then this is right up your alley.