Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Just have a couple of hours in the game, but I played more than 30 hours on Playstation, so I bought the game on Steam too as I can use it on the Steam Deck (too bad there is no cross save). The game is a eastern twist on farming sim and action combat. You end up in a place where there are monsters to kill for resources, and have a field to tend to make rice. Your objective is to clear this place from evil and make rice. Simple and straightforward. The farming is quite fun, as you do the rice cultivation by hand, growing husks, then planting then controlling the water level and removing the weeds that grow in the field. You need to keep an eye to the soil quality too and produce fertilizer, mixing it with different other items that increase the quality of the rice you will eventually haverst. The goal here is not just to produice some rice but also to make the rice better each batch you make, and to do so you need items that you gather from combat. So combat is pretty much required. Combat itself is the classic side scrolling like castlevania/metroid; with jump and 2 attacks. The twist is that your tools are your weapons, so you have to improve them by collecting special items as you play the game, and that increases your attack power. You also have your sacred robe which acts as "dodge" mechanic as you throw your robe appendixes as if they were the chain that Scorpion uses in Mortak Kombat, so you can either use it to close distance with an enemy and flicker behind them, or to grab them and stomp/throw them around (this is also a power you evolve as you progress). You also use the robe to traverse, as it let you reach places that a regular jump won't cover. Combat is fun overall, although simple; and mixed with just having to deal with rice is a great combo for the main game loop. You also have other characters around you, that will help and give you things to do, like missions for example. One of your friends is also the cook so every evening you decide the menu that the whole group will eat, and that is based on what you collected during the day or got stored away, so you also need to manage food and go hunt when needed. All in all I give it a 7 out of 10. Story is different; farming is very peculiar and done differently from other games, and combat is engaging enough without have to be too simple or extremely complex. Also seeing the protagonist grow from where she starts, is really nice; as she learn a lot on the way, not only in terms of combat but also in terms of how to deal with others.