This game has been recommended to me many times in the past, but I never actually felt like playing it. Personally, I’m not really into farming games. But oh boy, how wrong I was. Now the only thing on my mind is farming rice.
The rice farming system in this game isn’t just “plant, wait, harvest.” You go through selecting good seeds, plowing, making fertilizer, transplanting, flooding the field with just the right amount of water, weeding, managing the crop with proper water levels, sunlight, fertilizer, temperature, and even praying. There are so many hidden details, like, did you know the food you eat the day before making fertilizer affects its quality?
While farming is a big part of the game, the major reason I love this game is the combat system. I’ve played quite a few 2D platformers, but for some reason, this one really stuck with me. The battles are addictive, and the feedback, SFX, and overall feel are just so well designed. Everything feels great. That said, it does take some time to get used to. Enemies, like the player character, have a pretty long recovery periods (around 2-3s?) after hitting the ground, which can be frustrating at first. And the early game, especially at night, can be really hard, you can barely scratch the HP of even the weakest monsters during the first few years, yet they can one shot you. But as you continue farming, the difficulty gradually drops. Eventually, in the mid to late game, you might even want to intentionally hold back your character’s strength, because even bosses barely pose a threat. I feel like they could have done a better job balancing the difficulty or at least added a hard mode.
The game also has many interesting skills. Normally in games like this, I pick one build I like and stick with it, maybe swapping out a few things. But here? I actually read the skill descriptions, can you believe that? I actually used most of them depending on the situation (although part of that is because I try to weaken myself by using low level skills). They’re fun and varied. You also unlock different passive abilities as you keep using a skill (they cap at level 15). Some skills feel weak at first, but can become insanely strong later on.
That said, the combat system isn’t perfect. I don’t know why, but even though I would say there is decent enemy variety, it just feels repetitive. Maybe because most of them are animals? Or maybe because there aren’t many visual variations within enemy types? I dunno, it just feels like I’m fighting the same kind of enemies again and again and again from beginning to end.
And did I mention the flying enemies. They are sooooo buggy, Sometimes flying into walls or the ground and getting stuck, making it impossible to kill them. I’ve had to restart stages because of that once or twice. Even when they work properly, they’re still kind of annoying. You can spider man (basically your dodge/movement skill) to them, but they often just fly way off, and chasing them down is not fun. Trust me, they’re the real bosses (though to be fair, they’re very useful early on, since you can grapple to them as an escape or dodge in boss fights).
As for the story, I’m not going to focus too much on it because I was pretty much spoiled by the anime before I played. A few months ago, a friend recommended Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (the anime) to me. I didn’t recognize the title at first, but half episode in, I was like, “Wait… I’ve seen this character before.” After finishing the anime, I decided to finally try the game and I’m glad I did.
If you haven’t watched the anime yet and are planning to play the game, I’d recommend playing the game first. The story is pretty much the same between the two.
