Harvestella Review
I've tried to get into farming simulator games for most of my life, and I think the filter for me has always been the "sim" part. I have spent years hearing praise and enthusiasm for games like Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons, but I found myself bouncing off immediately when I gave them a try myself. Evenfarming sims that lean more into RPG elements like Rune Factory just have not been able to grab me as much as I wish they did. The closest I've gotten would still not even be considered as living in the same county, and that would be the Atelier series and its item-crafting focus. Despite this apprehension, something about Harvestella just sang to me when it was revealed.
Harvestella is the gateway farming sim for the RPG crowd that I've been craving for years. Granted, it achieves this by largely pointing the focus away from the farming sim aspects, but it achieves it all the same. Harvestella is story-driven RPG first, an action-adventure game second, and a farming sim third. It tackles all of these things well. I don't think I can point to a game ruining flaw in Harvestella's formula, but I do have a couple issues.
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Harvestella is the type of game that'll just simmer in your brain the further you get from it, I'm convinced this will be a beloved cult classic for years to come. There's so much here that feels like an experiment, and it's surprising how much of it comes together into a great package despite its shortcomings. When your greatest sin is being maybe a tad too simple, I call that a success.I think there's a lot of room for growth in a hypothetical follow-up with a larger budget, and, hopefully, Square Enix agrees with me.
Score: 8/10
