This could be an enjoyable game, but unfortunately it bets too much on artificial playtime padding. It satisfies the itch of "unlocking" and "leveling" with a farming/ranching/mining/foraging/adventuring (puzzle solving) aspect, but they artificially padded the game to seem much more expansive than it is, so you have to grind through several of the same seasons needlessly, when it could (and SHOULD) be doable in a year.
You are restricted in your research slots, but some of the plants have ridiculous requirements to research them, like 12 days growth time in a 28 day season. Before you can plant them or rather "learn" how to extract seeds, you usually have to "research" them though by looking at them (several times, sometimes in different areas) while they are still growing wildly (surely no one has ever done research on a plant that has been plucked already, that is unheard of!) and if you are unlucky and for several days none of the needed plants are growing anywhere, you might not be able to finish the research during that season, since not only the growth times are unacceptable, but also other factors play into whether the plant lives or dies, like whether it grows close to water or dies in rain (???) and so on... (And all of those are not based in reality at all, they are just wildly made up and do not care to teach you ANYTHING about the real world, which - for me - is usually the fun in playing games: Learning something that could actually help me in the real world or at least is viable information...)
As if all of that wasn't annoying enough, while the map is ludicrously small (so lesser likelihood of you encountering animals or plants you need for research in the wild), researching things is restricted to three samples in the beginning. So, when I started researching a spring plant, but wasn't able to finish it within spring, I was thinking to myself: Okay, let's rush the Greenhouse then, so I can finish my research there and open up that one research spot for one of the other 100 things you need to research within a season.
Nope. You cannot research samples in a Greenhouse, because that would be contraindicated to their ridiculous made up rules and would let you finish the game before 100 hours which apparently is a no-go for developers nowadays.
You need to quickly learn which animals are actually useful to keep (chicken) and which are not (sadly, sproutkitten...), because upkeeping your animals is another thing that artificially pads playtime, because they need to be fed, but to feed them you also need to plant plants or go forage, but you cannot buy seeds and you are completely dependent on the stuff you forage each day for seeds (IF you learned how to extract seeds, that is...), but then some animals also need seeds to eat, so you cannot plant them and it is a really tight budget you need to come up with and have a "production" chain of which animals "feed" other animals with their products (eggs, meat) and so on. You cannot just keep the animals you like, because they do nothing for you in your production chain. If you want to keep them, you need to rush another building for them to lie dormant, but all of the stuff in this game is kind of expensive and between planning what to plant, which animals to feed and what of your measly produce you can sell for money..
Don't even get me started on the ridiculously low stamina you have for each day. You can fell about three trees and then you are done! That is when you haven't even made room for your crops or the pens for animals.. And remember, you cannot just go to sleep for stamina, because you also need to finish your research before the end of the season.. Meaning you have to buy expensive food or forage for measly stamina refills. (Some stuff gives you 1 (ONE) energy.. AWESOME!) If you happen to not arguously eye your stamina (or the obligatory sleeping time that should be abolished from each and any simulation game...) you are being robbed of your money, even if you happen to pass out on your own land. And you will still feel exhausted the next day. Another "game mechanic" that should be abolished. Why would someone forcefully enter my farmland to rob me of my money, just because I took a (coerced) nap under the stars? It is none of their business??? So much for wholesome community... Why is it full of criminals??
Then there are shiny (oh, pardon me, "shimmering") animal versions in this game, but they serve ABSOLUTELY NO PURPOSE at all; they don't give better stuff, they don't have better perks, they don't love you more or grow up faster, they are literally the worst, most useless pallette swap in any game ever. What's the point?
Oh, and then there is the always absolutely irrelevant aspect of "romance" or "socialising". I could not care less. The design of some of these characters is TOO DAMN WOKE. And again, there are the usual tropes... Why would I go out of my way to befriend a character that is constantly rude and dismissive? I don't care about his (or her or it, can't quite tell with the green skin colour) sob story from the past where he once was called a frog or something and now is sooooo soooooooooo weary of other people, because he was hurty-wurty... I DON'T CARE. GO F RIGHT OFF THEN! At least this game doesn't deal in fantasy pronouns or other psychological issues, but you are still not allowed to customize your character in any meaningful way, so very ill people in real life do not get a tamper tantrum that they have to choose a very real one of the two genders and cannot act like they have been born devoid of any humanoid function.
If this game goes on sale and costs about five Euros, you can buy a way to satisfy an itch in a way, but it won't be satisfactory. More like drinking Kölsch, when you could drink an actual beer.
