Harvestella (2022)

This is my favorite game of the last several years. After 100%ing it on Switch, I loved it so much I bought it again on PC and 100%ed again. So, with apologies, this review is going to be long because I could go on forever about it - but I'll do my best to make every word helpful for people who need help deciding if this game is right for you.

Overall...

The soundtrack from Go Shiina (God Eater, Tales of) is peak excellence, and the story is just as balls-crazy as you'd expect from a JRPG. The world-building is rich and the environments are visually stunning.

In my opinion, the most divisive aspect and the biggest factor in whether this game will resonate with you is whether you'll love or hate the streamlined simplicity and relatively shallow implementation of most of the game's mechanics. There's enough complexity in combat and farming to allow for multiple viable strategies to choose between, but things are simplified enough that I can confidently say I have never spent less time in a JRPG's menus fiddling with stats and equipment than I did with Harvestella.

Many reviews also harp on this next point, but it bears repeating: Despite the marketing, this is 100% an RPG with light farming sim elements, not a farming sim with RPG elements. Below, I'll address both of these aspects of the game in more detail.

As an RPG...

Nearly everything that can ordinarily make a JRPG feel stressful or tedious has been removed or improved.

1 - There is no grinding required. Just playing the main narrative at a steady pace and taking side quests as I came across them kept me appropriately-leveled for combat, without having to loop back around through previously-cleared areas just to grind for more XP so I didn't get my ass kicked, and without getting so OP that it sucked all the fun out of combat.

Because of the day-night cycle, dungeons are designed to be completed in sections over the course of several in-game days, even taking long breaks in between if desired. As you advance through the dungeon, you unlock shortcuts so that if you leave and come back, you can quickly proceed to where you left off much faster than it took to get there originally. Result: Dungeons become places you pop in and out of to collect resources and gradually open up way forward, instead of godforsaken labyrinths that you become mired in for hours.

2 - Upgrade paths are straightforward and intuitive. While you can choose to unlock your skill trees for each of your combat jobs in any order, you can fully unlock the entire skill tree for every job. Every party member carries their own personal weapon which can be upgraded in a strictly linear fashion. Each new dungeon you reach unlocks new materials necessary for the next upgrade level, so you don't have to worry about whether you have the best weapons equipped - just keep upgrading the only weapons anyone has until you reach an upgrade level where you haven't yet encountered the required materials in a dungeon, and you know you've got the best weapons available thus far.

3 - Blind and unassisted playthroughs are not just viable, but satisfying. I 100%ed the game without ever needing to use a guide. (Has anyone ever said that about a JRPG before??) There are no missables, no time-limited or failable missions, and no punishingly-low RNG-based drops - but don't worry, success is not just handed to you on a silver platter, either. You do have to try.

Completing your Encyclopedia will require some focused effort looping back through previous dungeons to get specific less-common resources - it's just very easy to know where to go, there will be multiple chances to pick up what you need on each loop, and the odds of getting what you need are high enough that something that would take 50-70 loops in a Final Fantasy game will only take 5-7 loops here - just enough to make you feel like you're working for it without overstaying its welcome.

4 - The only minor downside to all of the above is that it does create a bit of narrative dissonance. Your character will ostensibly be rushing to go rescue someone or prevent some kind of huge imminent disaster, but you'll keep going home to sleep and then deciding to spend a few days cooking and farming and doing side quests before getting around to going back. This is purely a narrative immersive issue, since (as mentioned) no missions are time-sensitive or failable. That disaster/distressed person will be fine for as long as it takes you to get there.

On the whole, I think this mild dissonance is an acceptable trade-off for turning the stress level of dungeon-crawling down several notches and granting you the freedom to spend as much time as you want doing whatever you want, but without utterly abandoning the concept of a fully developed, progression-based narrative.

As a farming sim...

The mechanics are just as streamlined and simplified as the RPG ones.

1 - Farming primarily exists to support combat. You'll grow crops to make your own healing foods and juices, and to fund your weapon upgrades. Ranching is especially shallow compared to other farming games - you can only get two kinds of animals (and each only comes in one colorway). Although you can continue playing for as long as you want after finishing the main narrative, there simply isn't much reason to keep farming after you've cleared the very last boss in the post-game dungeon and completed your Encyclopedia.

2 - This game does not want you to min-max your farm or make it especially worthwhile to do so. You certainly can - on my second run I did make my own profit spreadsheet to consult, and it helped a bit especially in the early game - but frankly, the profit difference between the most and least profitable crops is ultimately pretty small, especially after the first 2-3 in-game weeks. In many cases, raw produce sells for more than processed goods made from it.

In short, there is no "snowball strategy" of the sort you can typically exploit in other farming sims, where if you know which crop to pick and the optimal way to process it and start ramping that production up as soon as possible, you will quickly become so rich that money stops being a limiting factor for the rest of the game.

Some will no doubt look on that negatively, because it means they can't just look up tips on internet to coast their way effortlessly to the endgame. I looked on it as a major positive, because it meant I could just play the game without worrying that I was hurting myself by unwittingly making severely sub-optimal choices.

3 - NPC relationships are almost completely un-gamified, and romance is mostly not involved. In a typical sim, you increase your relationship with NPCs through repetitive daily/weekly chores like talking to everyone every day and giving someone the exact same gift 100 times, and as you cross certain relationship thresholds, you're rewarded with a special character story event. The highest end goal of most NPC relationships is marriage.

In Harvestella, you increase your relationship level with NPCs by participating in a character story event with them, and after each event you're rewarded with combat bonuses (these apply whenever you have that character in your active party) and unique upgrade materials needed for that character's weapon. The storylines are more or less platonic, although (minor post-game spoiler) you can invite someone to live with you as your "partner" in the post-game. However, the dialogue in those scenes is ambiguous enough that it can be easily be interpreted as conveying either a romantic or platonic partnership, depending on which you'd rather see it as

I can't emphasize enough how refreshing this was compared to how mechanical relationships can be in other sims - not to mention feeling much more true to life. In real life, you don't grow close to people by plying them with repetitive gifts. You grow close to people by spending time with them and getting to know them. These characters are all so charming, with such interesting and different backgrounds, that most of the time I couldn't wait for the next story event to unlock so I could learn more about them.

About the budget and production value...

I will be brutally honest here, not because any of this was a significant problem for me personally, but because I want this review to be helpful to others so they don't go into the game with expectations it can't possibly hope to live up to.

This game was clearly made with an AA budget despite Square Enix pricing it like an AAA title. The character models are basic, heavily recycled, and have a limited pool of stiff animations. When you pet your mount, most of the time his entire head clips through your character's body - and he's so stinking cute you're going to want to pet him all the time, so you'd think this animation would have been a bit more polished for something that will happen so often.

Dialogue is not voice-acted (though there are some voiced one-liners that you'll hear when your avatar walks near to an NPC) and there's a lot of text dialogue involved in the main scenario, side quests, and character stories. On the plus side, quest rewards are extremely lucrative, so completionists won't feel like they're trudging through all that text solely because it's required for 100% - but you do have to go in prepared to do a lot of reading.

I've seen many reviews from gamers and critics alike that compare this game's vibe and aesthetic to a classic PS2-era JRPG with some modest visual upgrades, and I think that's right on the money. In fact, the dev team's visual leads all previously worked on Final Fantasy titles from the PS2 & PS3 eras, and most of the game's environments and monster designs wouldn't feel at all out of place in FF12 or FF13.

As much as I love this game, I don't think $60 was the right price point. The disconnect between the asking price and the evident production value, as well as between the way the game was marketed (as a sim) and the way it plays (as an RPG), undoubtedly hurt its sales. Luckily, SE puts it on sale for $30 pretty regularly these days, so you won't have to wait long if you want to wish list it and hold out for that price.

About your choice of platform...

The PC and Switch versions are almost identical, and sales nearly always go up at the same time on both. I'm not a kbm gamer myself, but I've heard the game is really poorly optimized for kbm controls, so you should plan to use a controller regardless of platform.

The only significant differences are:

• Loading times on the Switch are longer. They're not unbearable - they're shorter than what you sit through for the open world Zelda titles - but the difference is still enough to be noticeable.
• In Switch's handheld mode, the character models are rendered at lower resolution (presumably to conserve Switch's limited processing power?) which sort of makes everyone look like they have a thin coat of Vaseline smeared over them. This behavior isn't present when docked, and it only affects character models - objects and environments are crisp no matter what mode you play in. IMO, it's not terrible looking, but if you're someone who places a very high value on graphical fidelity, you'll want to stay docked or opt for the PC version.
• The Switch eShop has a demo version of the game that allows you to play 15 in-game days or through the end of chapter 2 (the first chapter with a dungeon), whichever comes first, which is about 2-3 hours of gameplay, give or take. Save data transfers to the full game if you go on to buy it. On PC, you'll have to settle for Steam's 2-hour no-questions-asked refund policy if you want to try before you fully commit.

Reminds me of Rune Factory 4 in a very very good way. Love the story and the music, got super invested in it all and finished the entire storyline before the first year of the game ended (6th of winter), combat is fun thanks to the job classes and the characters are all different. I teared up on 2-3 characters storylines.

The only flaw to me is the lack of voice acting, there's none, but better they be silent thank obnoxious or bad actors if they didn't have the budget to get good ones NGL. The music did the heavy lifting in the emotional moments and the translation too.

The best game I've played this year, parts cozy and parts engaging and parts chill, it's def the kind of game you can take at your own pace and the fishing and cooking is just like I like them: 1 button press ! Never liked stardew valley fishing mini-game, will never like it actually I prefer 1 button press.

I also like that the day doesn't feel too short like in other farming games where a day is like 20-30 minutes of gameplay, and the game gives you enough time to farm till 9 am and still use the rest of the day to dungeon or to go and do side quests (which are really good and made me tear up too!) and come back, cook and take of the animals.

I wish there was an Harvestella 2 already, i want more!!

Since Stardew Valley came out in 2016, the farm life sim genre has felt like it was having a bit of a moment with more games incorporating gardening and interacting with a small town as major features. Harvestella feels like the first synthesis of a JRPG and a farm life sim, but the two halves of the game often feel at-odds with each other. The urgency of the story is compromised by frequent return trips home to water plans, cook food, and sleep. The farm and town life parts often feel like they are a little too shallow and primarily serve as a source of consumables for battles. Somewhat surprisingly, the best part of Harvestella is the storyline: a sci-fi tale that is much larger than you’d expect from a farm life sim. The supporting cast has dedicated substantial storylines that I hope other JRPGs would borrow from in the future.

The biggest problem with Harvestella, the elephant in the room, is the budget limitations. It is impossible to play this game without constantly being aware of how cheap it feels. The main character has almost no customization options to pick from. There is almost no voice-acting in the entire game. Character animations are stiff and unnatural. Team-mate and enemy AI in battle is awful, frequently breaking and resulting in situations where AI characters or enemies stare at each other in battle and do nothing. The performance on Switch is also terrible: expect major frame drops & low-fps almost everywhere for graphics that look like they are from the PS3 gen. There is some gold in here if you are a fan of either JRPGs or farm life sims, but it is hard to recommend knowing how underbaked and malnourished almost every part of the game feels.

I love playing Stardew Valley but I’ve played it so much that I wanted to find something new. A YouTube reviewer of cozy games recommend this game and I LOVE IT. The combat does take a bit to get used to but I wouldn’t say I’m a excellent combat gamer and I figured it out (you can too!). Cozy games seem to be my niche. This game has an interesting storyline, the artwork is amazing and everything is adorable but not overly cute like Animal Crossing can sometimes be. So far this is my replacement for Stardew and I’m loving it!

CON: LOTS of reading. I really wish they had voice-acted at least some of this.