#this is a story-driven typical rpg with little care towards the advertised farming aspect

[mesquitecandle]

So I managed to play the Harvestella demo. Not too impressed with the gameplay and despite the stellar graphics, Lethe feels, for lack of a better word, empty. This reminds me of how rough Rune Factory 1 played, except worse if you're only here for fantasy farming.

I hate to say it, but Harvestella's a regular jrpg trying to dress itself up as a fantasy farming sim.

Personally, I hope I get to eat my words later, but with what the demo shows, there's nothing to look forward to beyond story beats.

I get what they're trying to do: flesh out an overarching story across several towns. But, so far, this doesn't translate well into a farming genre. Rant under cut:

It gets even more stark when there's a decent chance the romance mechanic is gone. That's only part of what makes a farming sim a farming sim. Once you take out marrying a villager, how do you keep a player invested in a town?

Flesh it out of course. For anyone pondering what that means, try looking up Majora's Mask. Heck, previous Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games do it too. Rune Factory 4's also a good comparison due to town events between story beats.

Notice how most of the characters have names, schedules, relationships with one another, and random events scattered throughout the days for players to run into?

Majora's Mask for example made me care about a mail man scared about the moon crushing him. Out of the many town NPCs it made me care about a man delivering my mail. All in three repeatable days.

Add to that seasonal festivals and item gifting with unique dialogue. Not to mention birthdays, gathering places, and little touches where you can slip into thinking this could be a believable living, breathing person rather than an NPC that greets you with a "Welcome to Cornea!" that never ever changes beyond story beats.

Damn you. Where's a mailman to greet each day? A person to come fetch your items to ship each evening? I feel isolated Square Enix. I'm gonna go mad and talk to my livestock. Give me a milkman if you can spare, I'm desperate here.

Lethe is covered in NPCs - from the shops to the random villagers. How are you going to convince me to stay here when the only folks I could care about are the town doctor, her brother, and the mayor?

Is Middle-Aged Woman going to spout different dialogue throughout the year rather than wax poetic about being infatuated about a guy from the next town over every day? Make me care, Square Enix!

Where's the calendar? What do these people like? Do they randomly give me trinkets too? Do they have birthdays? Do they celebrate anything? What hobbies do they indulge in?

Can I run into them in town just going around socializing with other people? Do they travel to other towns? Do all these towns have a meeting place where they can gather and intermingle with one another? Any unique minigames I can play with them?

No. Instead, let's superglue NPCs in the same place all day every day. End me.

You have to have more than just a friendship system in place to flesh out your villagers! Let them live - let them wander onto my farm, walk into my house, join a tavern and drink their little hearts out, run into the dungeons to, I don't know, grow mushrooms in the little corner of the map and shoo me away if I approach them.

Stop only letting them express themselves during the story! Allow me to talk to them as they go about their business tending to their work.

You could have tried that with our little house guest at night by scheduling when they come back to the farmhouse at say: 11:00pm.

Also, add some weather beyond Quietus: let the villagers scold me for going out and speaking to them during a storm. Change their schedules up to react to rain or a windy day. Add some dynamics to the seasons.

I can already tell once the story's over I will have no hook to keep playing. At all. That's a poor mark if you're trying to convince farming sim fans to play your game. Heck, at least try to have some characters marry off or pass away in later years so the NPCs still have free gossip outside of the story.

World build. Make use of the living, breathing town aspect to tell all sorts of little stories disconnected from the main plot. Hell, have them tangent to the plot yet remain optional for people to discover. Make use of the medium whenever you can, because lord help me, I'm stuck in Cornea here.

Where's my funny dialogue for offering people one really offensive item, like say, a love potion or a lit bomb? A full event where townsfolk shit talk me one by one for building a gold fence around my farm? Make me laugh Square Enix!

And don't get me started on the frequent load times; nor about how rushed the farming aspect is.

Why should I care about farming when I can grow carrots in 1 day?! All these crops take less than a week to grow. There's no care taken into animating harvesting either. No sprouts, only 1 crop per what appears to be 4 seeds, no quality level or hybridization, even absolute laziness when it comes to fetching items in the field dungeons (is this a farming sim or an MMOrpg crafting guild?).

I'm gonna be swimming in grilla without much satisfaction in the process. How sad.

TL;DR GET ME TO CARE ABOUT THE VILLAGERS. MAKE THE FARMING ASPECT FUN AND REWARDING.

Otherwise I can only take Harvestella as nothing more than another jrpg attempting to fool people into thinking it's a farming sim.

I'll save my breath when it comes to combat, because the demo only goes to chapter 2, which is early level and often bare bones as a result. That rant only comes with the full release.

As it is, if the story doesn't hook you, save your cash for when it goes on sale.

Especially if you wanted to play a farming sim.