Harvestella (2022)

Oh great, now I’m helping the church, which is effectively the seat of power in the world of Harvestella, suppress growing religious skepticism 🤦🏽

This despite the fact that the last head of the church was a literal monster that was going to devour the life essence of the devout. Who can fault people for harbouring doubt? Apparently the player character can, even though they killed their last Pope 🤦🏽🤦🏽

Jesus, no matter how shitty some NPC dude is to his partner, my character always ends up siding with him. Every single time the dude is in the wrong I shame the dude’s partner into going easy on him. It’s wild how patriarchal and conservative this game is. It’s always the woman who has to calm down/be reasonable/be understanding/apologize for being (justifiably) angry, etc.

This dude joined the army and was away from his beloved for five years or something. When he came back, seeing that she waited for him (and nursed him back to health after nearly dying and being in a coma) he ran away because he didn’t “deserve her” and “waisted her years” making her wait for him. She gets rightfully angry and tells him it’s not up to him whether she feels her years were wasted. He continues to sulk and say he doesn’t deserve her so he can’t go back home with her. She gets pissed and leaves. I tell him to apologize. We head back to town, and she refuses to talk to him. So what does he do? He goes to a special spot to sulk and wait for her. I inform her that he’s done this, and she tells me to go tell him not to wait. I relay the message at the waiting spot, but he refuses to go home. After multiple session of sulking we both wait. She finally shows up and is upset that I too waited there for her, thus encouraging him. She’s suitably angry and doesn’t want to hear his bullshit sulking. I repeatedly tell her she’s being unreasonable and to accept his apology (I have no other choice, they decided the player character is going to be an idiot). In the end they make up, but basically because she gives in and tells him she needs to listen and consider her feelings in future. After demonstrating that he’s not listening, she still forgives him and thanks me (who knows why, I wasn’t helpful in the least).

The character writing is awful. These people are the worst examples of tired heteronormative and gender normative roles.

Why am I interrupting a conversation between the doctor and her patient? The doctor already told me she’s busy with a patient yet I’m just hovering, listening to their conversation and interrupting with useless comments. Why is everyone in this game is failed example of a normal, decent human.

Jesus, the patient’s brother has a terminal disease. Every other doctor recommends palliative care. Cres, the doctor currently treating him, is obsessed with curing the disease (backstory, her father died from the same disease also obsessively trying to cure it). The patient’s sister asked Cres to be honest with her and tell her if her brother is likely going to die. My character interjected to tell her that Cres can cure him (there’s no evidence that is true yet). After the patient’s sister leaves, Cres apologizes to me for the patient’s outburst. Asking for honesty was an outburst?

The main characters in this game are fucking bonkers.

Without question one of the selling pints of this game, for me, is the fact that fishing lacks any nonsense. No tension metres, no fishing lures, no line strength, no snapping lines, nothing. You press B to fish, press B to reel the fish in, repeat. No half-assed skeuomorphic design principles in to try to duplicate the “feeling” of fishing. Just straight to business and no fluff. It’s perfection.

I briefly entertained the thought that I might want to try Rune Factory after this because I’m enjoying the hybrid farming and RPG elements. I watched a trailer for Rune Factory 5 and saw this B.S. below.

What I presume to be fishing:

And the same silly mini-game for cooking:

Suffice to say, I’ve lost all interest.

How you know you’re playing a Final Fantasy game in everything but name:

• Banging tunes
• Suitably weird and perfunctory story
• Job system
• Talking animals join your party
• Limit or break gauge
• Elemental magic and weaknesses central to the limit break system
• Baddies with names like Geist
• Crystals everywhere including functioning at the centre of a world upheaval and potential doomsday!