HARVESTELLA

Great game! Played it on switch and it is just so relaxing.

Managing time, stamina, and food, with combat and map-travel was kind of interesting from a micro-management perspective but overall, the game was a watered-down experience where you're neither interested in the farming nor the story. It's not bad, but it's not good either. Do not get this game expecting a farming sim: this game is more JRPG than anything else. The farming is shallow, and it interferes with the JRPG half of the game and leads to a game that doesn't excel in anything. It takes forever to get to the meat of the main story because of the time & stamina system. It's difficult to make money (especially in the beginning of the game) outside of sidequests, but the sidequests are beyond tedious. They have you run to a house, read a 3-5 minute unskippable cutscene, then manually run to just outside the house/to another house in the same map, read another cutscene, and then manually run back inside the house; loop until the final cutscene. Most other JRPGs at least have you kill 30 chickens to break up the monotony. The sidequest stories started off interesting but themes quickly started repeating themselves, and they eventually test your patience since you're running like a headless chicken from one end of the map to the end to read bland anime sidestories. The combat is a simple mash-run-mash loop with class affinities and a couple skills mixed in. I never enjoyed playing the game, but I never hated it either. It's just...bland.

For years now, Square-Enix has been trying to make a good A tier original IP game. The games they've released have mostly been middling mediocrity. But finally, they've released a game that I'd actually call "decently good". First things first though, is actually set expectations, because in usual fashion, SE's marketing did an absolutely terrible job. Harvestella is a JRPG first, and a farming simulator in a somewhat distant second. Neither are particularly deep, but the JRPG portion is a proper (A)RPG with a full job system, dungeon diving, and overarching story that is surprisingly compelling, while the farming portion is just the player plopping a few veggies & fruits in an expandable (but still limited) area, and tending to 2 specific types of animals, all this so that you can have ingredients to cook food that you'll use as supporting items for the aforementioned dungeon diving. The audio for the game is...interesting. The music is pretty good, kinda reminiscent of Nier Automata's. The voice acting, by contrast, is almost non-existent. If the simplistic farming hinted at it, the lack of VA exposes the fact that this game had a low budget to work with. The story does lose a lot of it's impact when the only times you'll ever hear a character talk is in random grunts and shouts. Ofc, that's likely leading you to the question: "If it's that obviously low-budget, then why is it priced like a marquee game?", and the answer to that leads to why, I think, Square-Enix has been unable to make their lower-tier efforts stick: pricing misalignment. This game, like a lot of others in their catalogue, is way overpriced for how underbudgeted, and how unproven, it is. This game would be a FAR EASIER pill to swallow if were somewhere closer to 40$/€ base price than within spitting distance of AAA pricing that it is now. But I'm digressing there. the TL;DR for this review is: Low-budget JRPG with simple farming sim bolted in, compelling story but overpriced, rec'd when on sale.

色々な面で残念な部分が多いゲーム。 【Sandbox部分】 〇良い部分 通常畑、水辺畑、洞窟畑とバイオームが分かれているので、 「あー確かに」というようなことも感じる。 〇悪い部分 何故か加工機や柵を畑に置かなければならないため、限り有る畑の1マスを消費し全体的な作物の収穫量が減少することになる。 収穫のモーションが長いため結構面倒だったりもする。 果樹で使用するマスが４マスなのに３つしか収穫できないので損した気分になる。 冬に育成できる作物の種類が圧倒的に少ないため、冬は畑作業がほぼなくなる。 【RPG部分】 〇良い部分 ハッキリ言って無い。 〇悪い部分 レベルアップによる強化が大雑把すぎる。 １日の終わりにレベルアップするのはまだ我慢できるが、 レベルアップで上がるステがオール＋１とか＋２とか雑に作りすぎる。 作り手はRPGを知らないのか？と考えてしまう。 【アクション部分】 〇良い部分 これも無い。 〇悪い部分 アクションゲームを知らない人が作ったとしか思えない雑さ。 攻撃や、ダッシュ、スキル発動でスタミナ消費はまだ良いが、 スタミナ回復手段が食事をすることで発生する時限式の自動回復のみ。 HP回復手段も食事のみ。 しかも、食事をすると満腹度が上がり大きな回復をするとあっというまに満腹になり 回復ができなくなる。 飲み物は満腹度が上がらないが、回復量は少量なので戦闘時には飲み物をがぶ飲みになる。 そして、次の部分が一番最低な部分で、 回避やガードがないため、戦闘をすると無傷ということにはほぼありえない。 基本的に足を止めての殴り合いになる（前衛職、後衛職問わず） しかも所々に配置されている強敵（FEAR）がアクティブなやつが多く、 初見時に戦闘状態になると逃げの一手しかなくなる上攻撃を避ける手段がないので、 大ダメージ被弾が必至である。 時々FEARの背後に通路があり、ショトカの道だったり、通常ルートだったりする場合があるので、 「ふざけんな！」と思ったこともある。 回復手段が乏しく、回避手段のないただただ殴り合いの戦闘で何を楽しめというのかが全く分からない。 【ストーリー部分】 ありきたりな部分もあるが、おおむね評価はできる。 【その他】 グラフィックや音楽は良かったと思う。 【総評】 アクションRPGの部分を除けば、それなりには楽しめると思うが これをフルプライズで購入するのはやめた方が良い。 ２～３000円程度なら、まぁ良いか程度にはなるが、 他者にお勧めできるかと言われると、お勧めできない。 似たようなゲームでストーリあり、農業あり、アクションRPGな部分もありなゲームで 代表的なものではルーンファクトリーシリーズがあるが、この手のゲームをやりたいのならそっちを買った方が断然いい。

The game starts really slow and it takes a while to unlock enough to really enjoy the core gameplay, however once you get through a year in game, there's so much to do. A decently fun farm system, crafting, cooking, quests all over the world, nice enough JRPG story, long extra dungeon to grind if you are into that, a dating sim and much more. The game world is very pretty, and the art style is appealing, while the graphics aren't that great, it's solid for a JRPG which tend to have average equality graphics, the art style and character designs more than make up for it as well. There are a number of cons that I think are worth mentioning since they can heavily impact your enjoyment of the game, personally these were not deal breakers for me but if they are for you then be warned. The battle system is probably the single biggest con, there is essentially no skill involved, mechanics like guarding, parrying and even dodging are pointless or outright non existent. Fights are more stat checks over anything else followed by having enough damage items in the form of elemental orbs and healing items for any major boss fights. Almost every attack outside of boss fights is undodgeable, so all enemy mobs will hit you unless you let your party eat the damage. Essentially clearing the game comes down to your level, your weapon level, your job / class being maxed out as much as possible, having a ton of items, ring equipment and upping the bonds with the party members you are bringing into the fight. Actual skill is not involved at all, just grind enough to meet the stat check in each dungeon and make sure you have orbs and healing items to spam for bosses. Breadth of the game: There is just so much to do in this game which is a hybrid between dating sim, JRPG, farming game and because of this the game has to limit how much you can do at first. Due to this it feels quite shallow early on while simultaneously spread very thin across many different things that feel overwhelming to learn. However this gets better over time and eventually these various game aspects do get deeper and you figure out the gameplay loop well enough to handle all of them. Stamina system: The game has a stamina check and a time limit per day check yet isn’t turn based and time / stamina all diminish whether you are farming, building bonds, or clearing a dungeon. It’s like Persona 5 but in the worst way possible, the stamina system really shouldn’t have been included in boss fights, just being unable to even basic attack because your character is hungry mid fight is ridiculous. Quests: The quests in this game are worse then fetch quests, they are basically just follow the person you are engaging with across the world map at multiple locations and talk to them / witness their character drama until you finally get some money and seeds. The actual stories and comedy are pretty good for some quests, but its such a drag to constantly have to chase people across the world in a game where you have a daily time limit every day and stamina needs that keep you from even fast walking, on top of this if you don’t finish a quest in a day you got to move to the next day which means put everything on hold and farm for the entire morning. Dialogue: The dialogue in the game is mostly pointless outside of a single big decision that determines which ending you get. I do mean pointless, not only does it have 0 effect on the story or results you get in anything, even choosing between different dialogue options gives you essentially no meaningful difference in conversation. There shouldn't be so many dialogue options in a game where 98% of it has no impact. Overall though, this game is at least a 7.5/10 and I would recommend getting it on sale.

you hear a lot about how it's not fully voiced, but that really doesn't take away much. the soundtrack is amazing. the story is engaging. the combat is wonderful- each build you use gives you a different outfit, too! the characters are memorable, and you can deepen your friendships with them. there's farming, fishing, combat, story, beautiful environment, and everything else you could want. i got it on sale, but i can see why it's so pricey. a lot of work went into this game. you can really tell.

TL;DR: So far the experience has been a good experience. It's been relaxing and so far I'd say the time invested has been good since I grabbed it on sale. Out of 100, it gets a solid hard 75 out of me. Reading further is where all my cons come into play... To start this off, that full retail price tag is atrocious. I got this on sale but even so, this is a $30 game at best. Now the problems that come with the game is entirely with it's shortcomings. Reused assets, reused animations, reused enemies, reused audio, etc. The game is a SILENT game. Putting the music audio to zero and 100 literally have no difference. Voice actors are and can be expensive, but you have to go all the way because audio is more important than graphics. I Am Setsuna is my direct comparison for a "silent game" where music is the only audio that has variance. I enjoy the short stories with the side questing but because this game is so "silent" I find myself mashing the advance button to pass through dialogue that I don't want to read or care for. The mechanics of the game are good, they're pretty solid. The management of the game is a very steady give and take type of system. No breaking the bank or spamming infinite cash crops. My biggest issue with the game is entirely with it's story. It's not that well written. Each character does not have good writing and motivation save for specifically one of them, Aysl. His story is relatable and his struggle is felt beyond the avatar we control. But I ask myself where is this story going? What are the stakes? What is being unraveled here? If your story isn't tight with how limited the budget can be, it'll really start to show if there isn't other features to save the game like how the fun combat of Scarlet Nexus saves the confusing story it has.

I loved this game. It took me some getting used to, and a little trial and error, but was super fun. The farming, story, and relationship mechanics can seem a bit overwhelming, but it does work well together. I put in around 100 hrs or more. very great game.