Cattle Country

Cattle Country is charming and unique, however it has a massive issue - the weather effects. During my short playtime, I experienced a few mornings of blinding bright white light across the whole farm that lasted about 30 seconds each time (apparently from a rainbow appearing?) and 2 thunderstorms that shook my screen significantly with flashes of bright lightning. It was physically uncomfortable to look at it, and to my surprise, there's no option to turn off any weather effects. My monitor is on the lowest brightness setting, and the effects were too much. If you're prone to migraines like me, I'd recommend skipping this game unless the devs add a toggle on the weather effects.

It feels like the devs gave up on this game. Or rather, they only made this game to put their foot in the farming simulator genre and then left it at that. The game is beautiful and the music is nice, but it's pretty bare bones. The characters are not fleshed out, their lines are repetitive and their cutscenes are generic and lack any sort of sparkle. There's a lot of QOL features that need to be added, because there's no guide that helps with romancing characters or figuring out how to progress in the game further. There's a lot of features like shooting a gun, that they don't even tell you how to do. The devs don't bother updating the game AT ALL, that's content updates and patches, so the game has a lot of bugs that are ridiculously easy to find. It's all around disappointing how they've treated this game. In the discord, they ignore people's complaints about bugs and don't answer their questions, like they forgot this game exists. Yes, it's pretty to look at, but it gets boring and repetitive after some hours. Sadly, pretty visuals isn't enough to make a good game, Playtonic, do better.

Literally TL;DR: - no character stats or menu, no perks, no skills, almost no nothing except craftables to soften the grind, just mining/farming/etc class exp & recipes - horrible handling of tools, especially watering can and fishing rod (fishing in general is extremely slow and clumsy) --- that shootout minigame / bandit encounter is terrible and unnecessarily forced, and in the surface world you can't just aim at bandits like you can shoot at wild game or 'monsters' in the mines - spawned rocks/trees/objects may block you on your own farm while your path-making/clearing tool (such as pickaxe) is at blacksmith's -- elevators only cover a very short distance, not 300+ blocks down, no point in building/crafting them (silver and gold ore are too time-consuming to obtain) - can't freely shoot while climbing ladders - mines are actually boring, no extreme or dangerous mobs there - no cosmetics such as pure red hair --- save system that doesn't let you save manually, or save on exit, or auto-save during transitions/moving to new areas, also seems like there is no backup save in the saves folder either - progression seems broken or far too conditional, no town projects for a long while now, for instance, while at the same time almost got to the deepest reaches of the mine w/o any probs (around 500+ floor) right after the start / (2nd season / summer) - no accurate relationship points gains or stats - can't customise pets (cat/dog)? - far too few inventory slots (esp for deep mining), 3 rows/36 slots is nothing - useless mats dropping in the mines like the regular wood which can be obtained everywhere, just to take a slot for the 100th time for no reason at all - no way to lock some slots/the toolbar for tools only - some resources are lost after falling into water, no biggie - moving and placing have different tiles available, like on the Rivers map (the northwesternmost corner) - buying items 1 by 1 is a bad joke when you just want to buy 100 bullets in bulk for 1100 gold quickly - bad regional pricing - few localisations/translations - no key rebinds - and more annoyances... + (mines) platforming that changes the view, for a breath of fresh air +++ mood, visuals, soundtrack + money-wise/earnings-wise, balanced enough + nice rewards for quests Verdict: 4+/10.

This game is completely unplayable unless you’re willing to look up nearly every single major task requirement online or are the kind of person that enjoys grinding every single skill and relationship 100%. Some quests are blatantly incorrect (like joining the wine club calls for crafting 50 bottles of wine but triggers at 5, so I wasted a lot of early game materials making kegs). The dev’s guides are frustrating to try to follow too. I spent about a week in game trying to trigger a heart scene event assuming that I was showing up at the wrong time or in the wrong weather but I eventually looked up how to unlock the barn only to find in a community post that it’s 3 hearts, not 1 like the guide says. Apparently there are a lot of inaccuracies like that further into the game. Basic game mechanics and tasks are locked behind arbitrary heart events or skill levels. I really enjoyed the first 10 hours or so of this game but it has really let me down. I was so excited about the country setting and was hoping that would add a new layer to it but while the “rootin’ ‘n’ tootin’” dialogue is charming, it’s also hard to read and is a mask for the fact that most of the characters have no individual personalities besides their job. If you took away the cowboy hats and abundant apostrophes, this would look like any other farming sim game. Besides that, leveling up hearts is such a grind mechanically, especially being such a core part of progression. I gave someone one of their liked gifts every time I saw them during spring but none of it counted because they weren’t in sections of 4 consecutive days (which I didn’t find out was necessary until I looked it up). The more I looked into game progression, the more game breaking or time wasting bugs I found from the community, which made me regret purchasing the game in the first place and unlikely to pick it up again.

Really fun farming sim. Really love that it takes place in the wildwest. The characters are quite loveable. The cutscenes are pretty good so far. Though I do wish there was a bit more interactions/more cutscenes since it does get a bit repetitive their dialogue, since they say the same thing everyday in town. Another thing that would be a cool fix, is when you go out in town and you speak to the person you married they awknowledge you in some way, it only happens in the farm and there seems to have like 2 sprites of the character roaming around, one in town, one in the farm. But that doesn't ruin the game or anything. I do for sure recommend this game, the mining is great, I LOVE HUNTING, love the bandit attacks, the seasonal events are pretty decent. I always like a game where we fix up a town, which was also unexpected when I first bought this. I look forward to what else this game can bring. Especially since this is one of those games where your character tries to build a sense of community in a small wild west town. ( Also would love a deputy job, since I know theres a mail sorting one :) or more similar jobs added - I think it would be a cool touch. )

YEEEEHAAAAW! Loved this game from the very beggining. Love the classic pixel-art style, cozy feeling, plenty of things to do and many more that i cannot count. Stardew younger brother went on wild west. But tbh it was ARHTUR MORGAN who BOUGHT ME. <3

This is an amazing game! It has mining, hunting, farming, relationships, and just so many very cool details that make this game endearing. You are in the wild west and there are some very cool conversations with the characters who are all like you just trying to survive out here in the wild. For those who prefer more chill game play you can turn off enemies in your settings. I got shot and robbed at one point and decided to try that out. Totally chill!

to many bugs and seems abandoned

eigentlich auch nur ein Stardew valley Klon mir fehlt bei dem Spiel die Tiefe. und ehrlich gesagt, muss man leider sagen, ist das Spiel am Thema vorbei. ich spüre nichts vom "Wilden Westen" "Cowboy"-leben oder "Pionier"

So far I just love how much bigger the world and the town feel than any other "rural life" sim I've ever played. I've played for a few hours already but I haven't even seen most of the map because the wilderness area is actually significantly bigger than the settled part. It feels a lot more wide open and, I guess, rural than most of these games I've played. And the map has more character. It feels like someone involved in the development may have been to the countryside before They've cleaned up a lot of the boring aspects of these games. The tools don't decay and the watering animation is super fast. I also appreciate that the fishing minigame has a tangible end. That's what makes it actually kind of fun and relaxing to me and not a chore. A bar bounces back and forth and you get a few chances to click when it's in the right place. What a relief it is to pass or fail and not struggle endlessly with the mystery fish that turns out to be an old boot...