Developed and Published By: Phoenix Labs
Category: Simulation
Release Date: 09.08.23
Price: $44.99
It’s not necessarily my favorite genre, but I adore farm life sims. I especially love Stardew Valley and Rune Factory, but I’ll give every game in the genre a chance. I’ve had my eyes on Fae Farm for a long time, but I was skeptical of the price when it first launched. But I finally got to play it and I regret not playing it sooner because there’s one huge quality of life feature.
I love them all, but these kinds of games all have one fatal flaw. They all require a copious amount of grinding. I’m not just talking about the amount of repeat farming, gifting, and crafting. You need to maintain your tools, organize them within your inventory, and switch them out every few seconds. It’s a pain. Fortunately, Fae Farm eliminates all these issues and makes gameplay significantly quicker.
All you have to do is look at the thing you want to interact with and the game immediately picks the tool for you. The seconds you save here and there really add up and turn farming into a very efficient and fluent experience. But how does the rest of the game hold up? Honestly, the rest of pretty good too.
You discover a message in a bottle and end up on the island of Azoria. The island is surrounded by whirlpools, has a giant volcano, and is full of rogue magic. It’s the complete opposite of a tropical paradise. But the mayor sets you up with a plot of land and convinces you to stay there and start a new life.
The rest of the game is pretty good. Most of it is your standard farm life sim, but the visuals, combat, crafting, decorating, exploration, and UI are all really good. Plus there’s a ton of romance options, a staple of these kinds of games. The overall gameplay and mechanics are really good. The game does have one minor flaw though.
The characters and overall story seem to be a bit shallow. When I first met the Mayor, I thought I was in for a ton of interesting characters because she seemed like she had a lot of personality. But the deeper I played, the less each character has going on. There are different story beats too like helping to stop the whirlpools and meeting the guardian of the island. There’s a lot going on and there’s lots of magical moments, but the gameplay was way more important and engaging than the characters and story.
I still think it’s a great game though. It’s like Rune Factory meets Dreamlight Valley and I can look past the writing because of how clean and fun the actual gameplay is. On the Switch, the game runs very well in both docked and handheld mode too. Overall, you’ll want to pick up Fae Farm if you’ve ever found yourself liking games like Rune Factory, Stardew Valley, or Harvest Moon.
4/5
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