Roots of Pacha

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Roots of Pacha feels like a sleeper hit in the farm sim space. Mistria isn't even fully out yet and it has 17,000 ratings, Sun Haven has 19,000 reviews, and Coral Island has just over 17,000 as well, but this game only has 3000? So underrated. I have followed this game since pre-release and sunk just over 100 hours into it. There are many, many characters to talk to, romances to be had and so many mini games and interactions with the world, especially after the 1.3 patch. I feel like the developers really love and care about their game - it is still updating 2 years later. What I love about this game is just how beautiful the world is and how much thought has gone into character designs and lore. Your clan arrive at their new home location after seeing the giant tree and settling nearby. You can design your character and name them (male or female) and through the game, unlock more clothing options and customise your character. You start with basic tools and can develop more through acquiring community points, which, across the game, trigger idea generation from your clanmates. Then you discuss their new idea and bring them the materials and you can unlock a new tool, building for your home or recipe. The game progresses as you get more community points until you essentially max out your commune. In the most recent patch, the game introduced additional biomes for both the Mograni and the Yakuan tribes, which is connected to fast-travelling via the cave system (also a fun time). I love the new addition of bug catching and the quirky storyline. I have loved getting close with the other characters - because although they have a simple story and short cutscenes, they are all different. What I struggled with with Mistria was the star event, where most of the female characters express doubt in their abilities. When it comes to romance, Pacha is unique in that you can marry one person in the game (your union partner), who moves in with you, but romance is open with every other romance-able character (who you can't marry). The game currently has about 15 love interests. Pacha features a few mini-games/events while out in the wild - like mentioned above, the bug-catching, which uses an ocarina, animal taming (and breeding) using the flute, as well as live music which allows you to play a ddr-clone and unlock more songs, fishing (which is not my favourite - as it requires a lot of time and patience), horse racing, and festival events. I can't sing this games praises enough. You may think that taming an animal once is enough, but the more you tame animals, the higher chance you have of seeing a rare one. Amazing. I have a cloudy horse and a golden horse! Some tamed animals can only be pets and you can only have a max of 3. The game has no combat unlike other farm sims which keeps that in the mines - instead it has puzzle solving (rudimentary). Magic plays a big part in these puzzles and in the game. I think it indicates a big connection to nature and adds to the worldbuilding. The farming in Pacha is good after a while and has a lot of additional bonuses added to it. You can make different kinds of fertilisers, plant wild seeds and store-bought seeds, you can harvest mushrooms and herbs (which can be required to cure sickness from your animals), you can eventually unlock sprinklers and then child-labour. And talking about kids - I havent really played a game where the child eventually has their own life apart from the Sims. (lol) My son is going to school, I got him through childhood LOL. Seeds and fish have a knowledge bar which improves their quality as you catch more. My only criticisms of this game is that I just really don't like fishing, and that the movement speed is very slow especially compared to Mistria. Even the horse feels slow. I wish I could move faster! I also feel like i have heaps of farmland and nothing to do with it even with my animal pens there, and I can never really get rid of the grass/wood/rocks on the farmland as they respawn through your tilled land. Roots of Pacha is an absolute farming gem and so peaceful. You can put as much time into it as you want. It's just so lovely and a game I thoroughly enjoy.

[b]Note[/b]: This review doesn’t cover any online co-op gameplay. Farming sim in prehistoric setting. Given that woolly mammoths are in the game and they went extinct around 4,000 years ago, the setting would be even older than that. Anyway, the protagonist is adopted by the Pachan people and is immediately recognized as special when they receive the Pacha Tree as their spiritual totem. It is their destiny to bring the Pachan people to prosperity and bring peace among the other tribes. [u]Information[/u] • Key bindings can be changed. (Yay, for the left-handed.) • Day duration can be set to 15 minutes, 17.5 minutes, or 20 minutes. • In character customization, there are 3 body types: muscular/masculine, curvy/feminine, and average/androgynous. • Gameplay involves: farming, gathering, mining, wood chopping, fishing, crafting, cooking, animal taming/befriending, animal breeding, socializing NPCs & gift giving, cave puzzles, and festival events. End-of-game: bug catching. • The (main) fishing mini-game is fun and casual. The player waits for a bar to fill up, then clicks at the right time. Two more means of fishing open up at end-of-game, both extremely easy. • Bug catching is super easy, just time-consuming. The [url=https://rootsofpacha.wiki.gg/wiki/Bug_Catching]Wiki’s section on bug catching[/url] explains it better than me or the in-game tutorial. • The animal befriending mini-game involves playing a flute. An animal is selected for “attune,” then the player needs to click at the right times when a circle meets with another on the face of a drum. (… Even though it’s a flute being played.) I didn’t find it too difficult. • Main-game ranch animals include: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs]aurochsen[/url], bison, guanacos, ibexes, junglefowls, ostriches, steppe horses, and wild boars. End-of-game: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo]dodoes[/url] and mouflons. (Along with “future” animals.) • Running out of stamina has no penalty. Just that actions can no longer be taken until some stamina has been restored. • The time isn’t displayed until a sundial is built. • The player can date more than one person at once, but can only marry one person. A child can be had regardless of the gender pairing. The child grows up enough to attend school and choose a path in life. Two children at maximum. • No combat. [u]Praises[/u] • Characters have mini-intros, telling the player who they are and how they’re related to the protagonist and others. This info can be pulled up any time after the initial intro. Very helpful for remembering so many NPCs. • I adore the character art/portraits. They all look so well-done and unique. I can tell [i]everyone[/i] apart. • Excellent diversity among the NPCs. • The map can be interacted with in helpful ways to find locations and NPCs easily. • If you’re attracted to women, there are plenty of good romance options. I had a difficult time making a choice, as you can only marry one. • The player gets to decide where to place village projects, buildings, and improvements. • There are several decoration options. More options open up as the game progresses. NPCs gift unique décor items as their friendships improve. • I really liked the irrigation system for watering crops. I feel like it makes more sense and is easier to use than the typical sprinklers a lot of farming sims have as the “upgrade” from watering the crops manually. Even the animation of the water pouring down the trenches from the water pump is satisfying. • The end-of-game content is impressive. The player gets to go to the homelands of the other two tribes involved in the story, thus, more maps, items, quests, animals, and NPCs. • An overabundance of farming space. I had an animal hut (barn) for every type of ranch animal, and there was plenty of space still left for the animals to roam and graze. • All tamed/befriended animals can be named and most can be used as a mount. • The player can befriend wolves, bunnies, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_spelaea]cave lions[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth]woolly mammoths[/url], pandas, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivatherium]sivatheriums[/url], and pet them. They come live in the hut (as babies, if they’re too big otherwise) and be cute. (1 pet per hut upgrade. 3 pets max.) [u]Complaints[/u] • It can be a little difficult to distinguish when crops are ready to harvest, especially when they’re bunched together in a large field. In other farming sims, crops ready to harvest will sparkle or have some outside indication that sets them apart. • The male characters are kind of boring as romance options. Jag was the only one I found interesting. (Looking at the dev team, it’s mostly dudes and if they’re all/mostly hetero, that would explain things.) • Gender binary. If you study cultural anthropology, you’d actually know that several ancient tribal people did not embrace the gender binary. Also, this is supposed to be a work of fiction, so even if that wasn’t true, the devs could’ve made non-binary characters anyway. • Not being able to save [i]anywhere[/i]. The game can only save at the protagonist’s bed. This is super inconvenient. • An achievement for doing all the songs for the Guitar Hero-like mini-game, which I despise. [i]Not fun[/i]. • Not a real complaint, but more like a confused observation: Most of the dev team is from Argentina, but there is no Latin American Spanish localization for the game. Only Spain Spanish. Wat? The [url=https://rootsofpacha.wiki.gg]Official Roots of Pacha Wiki[/url] is far more up-to-date than the guides on Steam, due to a major update the devs put out in April. The Steam guides are very lacking now, just fyi. Looking at my hours put into the game, obviously, I found it addicting and fun despite any complaints. I definitely recommend it to fans of the genre.

TL;DR: It's a standard farming sim with a stone age coat that goes through a midlife crisis at the end. So I went into this because of the concept. Paleolithic fantasy has always been a thing of fascination, just imagine figuring out the things we know as a matter of fact now in a time when those things needed to be discovered. You have to figure out taming animals, growing crops, watermills, toolmaking - it's not just there if you have the money, there's an at times frustratingly long process to the end goal and I love it. But it's not about how you start, it's about how you finish. For some reason, the devs decided to introduce a time-traveler in the late game, and every time she comes onto the screen, my experience actively gets worse. What exactly does she do that the spiritual leaders or nature spirits themselves can't? This is neither asked nor answered afaik. It's like my favorite play, but on steroids - the first three acts are great, fantastic pieces of ART, and then the last two come in like an elephant in a badger den. The moment that time-traveler crossed my screen, the game entirely lost its identity and became something else. I'm no longer farming to build the first corporate megafarm, or connect the tribes, or find what's yet to be discovered - I've been rugpulled and am now farming so the future doesn't turn into a horrible dystopia without banana trees or friendship or something. I want to make it clear - I'm not saying you shouldn't play this game because it's not a good game, I'm saying you shouldn't play it because what's on the cover isn't what's in the book. You're promised paleolithic fantasy, and you're given paleolithic sci-fi. What an absolute shame.

石器時代の農業ゲーム。 最初のクエストから詰まりテンポの悪さもあって断念しました。 [h1]初日から詰まる [/h1] 最初に種を見つけて植えるクエストが始まるが全くヒントや誘導も無い 探しているうちにゲーム内の１日が終わる マップを開くがそれらしいものも無い 日本語の攻略情報が無い [h1]序盤のテンポが悪すぎる [/h1] 畑に大量にある草や木を取ろうと思ったがとにかく移動が遅い あっという間にスタミナが尽きて次の日になる 試行錯誤と忍耐と我慢の先に面白くなっていくのかもしれませんがお蔵入りとなりました。総合プレイ時間は買ってすぐにトレーディングカードが欲しかったのでタイトル画面で放置した時間となります。おかげで返金もできず大変残念なことになりましたが他の方はこんなことにならないようにとりあえず自分にとって面白いかどうかちょっと遊んでみるのがいいと思います。勉強代だと思うことにします。 種探しと言われると北斗の拳の「種もみを取らんでくだされ」の爺が頭に出てくるが このゲームはその爺よりヒントが無いｗ

I like these kind of games. A lot. And I must honestly say that when it comes to implementing common genre tropes: Roots of Pacha does it best. So, you won't miss one fruit and then have to wait a whole year for the right season to come back around. You don't have to keep the wiki open at all times, write notes and still miss things for later. Roots of Pacha manages to let you play without bogging new players down with WAAAAYYYYY too much information to keep track of. And as someone that really loves building a family and having my children be part of the game: Roots of Pacha does that best, too. You interact, they grow, they become part of the community. I come back to play this all the time and it's always fun and relaxing. Would recommend whole heartedly!

Ok, so I finished the game, as in I'm part of the 0.9%, and the main reason I can't recommend the game is because the second half of it is an absolute SLOG. It stopped being fun 100 hours ago, but I wanted to get the ending. The animal husbandry takes FOREVER, and the ending I was presented with simply does not justify all the boring repetition I had to go through. Aside from that, the pacing of this game is just wonky. It takes half the game to meet all the characters (including all the romanceable ones), and even once I got to the ending I was only at full hearts with the character I formed a union with (and if you're going for the ending, there's no time to chat), and many were still at two, so that's a whole bunch of NPC development that gets lost in the slog. Once you complete all the ideas, game lore stops except for the ending. It takes a long time to unlock key mechanics and some depend on luck, meaning that 100-percenting the game is practically impossible. The music and the aesthetic are excellent, a lot of very gorgeous environments and the animals are adorable. I just wish the game had had less grind and more lore.

神了，可以说这游戏前十个小时让爱挑刺的我也挑不出什么错，引导是我见过有史以来最好，游玩逻辑合理且循序渐进，世界观清晰，游戏风格很有特色，完成度非常高简直highly recommend，基本上没有缺点和无法理解的游玩瑕疵，闻所未闻见所未见，越玩越惊喜，为什么这么冷门，种田游戏不玩这个简直亏大了，玩过历代种田游戏它也是数一数二做得好。玩家要作为一名原始人，和氏族族人一起在野外定居生活，完成帕夏的启示获得帕夏的力量，不断发展氏族大概这么个主线故事，途中还会认识其他氏族的人们成为朋友，共同度过节日，与之交换氏族资源，还可以和它们建立关系。 [h3]优点[/h3] +我感觉玩法上最有特色的应该是氏族贡献和科技树解锁，不是个人而是整个氏族的贡献值叠加在一起，到达一定值会有新的点子被居民提出需要玩家完成，那种看着居所越来越繁华生活不断改善的样子（场景会变化）非常有成就感。最关键的是科技树解锁非常符合逻辑就是一步一步慢慢来，没有一股脑狂塞，我觉得很cozy很慢生活，主线和科技树整体解锁和推进的节奏安排相当好很自然，[b]这是有什么高人指点才做得出来的，HOW？！玩过其他同类型游戏就会发现这个品质真的非常难得，建议其他种田游戏全部都来学习。[/b] +游戏特色可以说无代餐，太有氛围感了音乐美术场景，原始人部落有草原和绿地沙滩，野生动物也是其他游戏里见不到的大象鸵鸟和冷门到没见过名字的动物，可以把它们驯服回家当自己的坐骑，太新鲜了这些动物谁不想骑狼骑鸵鸟呢…… +内容丰富，无论是种植和渔业畜牧矿物，还有各类加工品，可以把资源晾晒熏烤捣浆榨汁发酵等等，种类都很多，充足的游玩体验不会让人有浅尝辄止或者就这的感受。 +-矿洞解谜应该是玩家比较饱受折磨的一环，不过我觉得还是蛮有意思的，是特色的一部分，玩家需要到达图腾房间解出祭坛需要的贡品，这一步和主线科技树相扣我觉得结合得很好，但是专门为了看图腾跑大老远一个房间有点费劲，想逃课直接看攻略交贡品会轻松很多，交完之后的就是解谜环节，没有全景地图而且操作有点慢，但也不是大问题。 [h3]缺点[/h3] 这些不足一开始没有很明显，越往后越暴露，这些打mod解决会好很多 -体力太少，食物能回复的体力也很少，同时劳动所需要的体力花费太多，基本给田里浇一下水半格体力就没了，更不用提砍树下矿之类的。 -驯服动物的玩法新鲜但是小游戏花时间略长而且重复性很高，做多了就很无聊，捕鱼小游戏也是耗时长没有什么游戏性，略枯燥。 -地图挺大的但传送开得很晚要到主线后期，走路时长花太久。 -人际交往太“真实”了，和族人一天不交谈好感度会下降，要维持社交需要花费精力。 -季度活动内容比较少也没有特别的玩法，没有什么节日氛围和参与感。 综上虽然目前没打完但给我的体验是市面上所有主题种田游戏the best，还能有超越的吗真的存疑。

This might be the only farming sim I've ever played that has a system for domesticating crops over time! It has a lot of unique features that I really enjoy, like the mount system. Some minor complaints: - The skintones for Black and brown characters are usually really ashy/desaturated, which is unfortunate. Please, give them some colour! Dark skintones are vibrant IRL! - Darker-skinned NPCs almost always have straight hair, and it would be nice to see more afrotextured hairstyles - both for NPCs and the player. - Character designs in general often feel a bit clunky/take me out of the setting somewhat; there's a blonde girl with pigtails who looks like she stepped out of the 2000s, for example. - Romance candidates are generally very young and unappealing to me as a 30+ year old, while all the NPCs I WOULD romance are unmarriagable/married/old/whatever. - Depictions of prejudice between clans are shallow and very surface-level "racism is bad and only happens because we're scared of people who are Different!" which feels a bit... ehhh... ignorant of the actual reasons prejudice and racism occur, maybe? I can't expect a farming sim game to go super deep into that, but I dunno. I like the fantasy of having a clan full of people who all look different from one another (various skintones, ethnicities, etc) but it feels absurd to have that and ALSO have this weird, shallow metaphor for racism thrown in too. I'm sure I had other criticisms on this subject but it's been a little while since I last played so I don't fully remember the plot now ^^; When you combine this with the ashy skintones for darker-skinned characters it sort of feels like... well, you're [i]trying[/i] to be inclusive and avoid racial stereotyping, but I'm not sure you fully understand the issues you're trying to avoid! And now for some praise: - I LOVE the tool system. Having one tool that does everything instead of constantly having to switch between things on a hotbar is such a good choice. - I love the fishing minigame! It's very unique and I really enjoy it compared to other fishing mechanics (even as someone who generally loves those). - The flute-taming mechanic is WONDERFUL. I love that we're befriending the animals of the land and respecting them, the way Indigenous societies across the world often do, rather than just treating them as a conquest to be forcibly "tamed". - The crops system, like I mentioned. The crops we start with are the indigenous varieties, which I've never seen before in a farming game like this. It feels like the devs made an attempt to incorporate prehistoric humans' and Indigenous peoples' relationships to the land in general with this game; I don't know enough to say which cultures and societies they might have drawn inspiration from though, nor how 'well' they've done so (see my criticisms above). But it feels very different to most farming sim games and I like it a lot, and can appreciate the effort put into this. - The UI and sound design are very fun and enjoyable to me. - I LOVE the relationship the player character has to the NPCs. The clan system and the way bonds between people are emphasized, the way we're introduced to NPCs with "you know this person as..." etc, it all feels very non-colonial, which is a rarity in a genre that is generally just full of Colonialism Simulators TM. In general I absolutely recommend this game if you enjoy the farming sim genre, especially if you've gotten bored with the other games available to you and are looking for something with a bit of a fresh spin on it.

If you like chill farming sims in general and have a non-pedantic interest in prehistoric culture (got to be able to let a lot anachronisms go) this is a worth the low price. Plays similar to Stardew, but with some interesting twists and doesn't seem like its in such a rush. There are seasonal crops, but that 28 day limit becomes less of one the more you play. I like the exploration in the world and the way it expands as you become ready for it. A great balance of farming, exploring, and social interactions with the cast of NPCs. I like that it starts of with a small group and then expands just as you end up with more free time. I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at writing recommendations, but TLDR; if you want a new social-farming experience with a 'prehistoric' twist, this is a great one.