It's almost impossible to shake the feeling of having already played Fae Farm. The game of the Canadian team. Phoenix Labs is just the latest in a long line of so-called "healthy" experiences, a general Anglophone term often used to describe the plethora of games in which action, combat and demanding challenges give way to positive, light activities. .
Life and farming simulators represent a large part of this particular niche, and games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Stardew Valley have seen an impressive number of emulators in recent years. The promise is always the same: disconnect from daily stress and dedicate yourself to your own virtual house, with your own garden and perhaps your own pets.
Look after Fae Farm Review Therefore, it had to be a moment of escape, a relaxing activity between a morning fishing, an afternoon watering the garden and an afternoon chatting with smiling digital characters. It's a shame that this cheerful life simulator is paradoxically lifeless.
Lots of content, little personality.
La history of Fae Farm begins with a very unoriginal pretext: the protagonist sets off to visit the island of Azoria, ends up involved in a shipwreck and is saved and taken in by the local mayor, who invites him to stay on an abandoned farm. It's okay: sometimes it's about a relative who has left a small house as an inheritance, other times it's a move to the country for the holidays, but all games of this type try to get to the point without too many justifications. Guided by the tasks given to him by the mayor and the other inhabitants of the island, the player soon learns everything that is possible to do on the Fae Farm. Basically everything you would expect. a game strongly inspired by Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing- You can prepare land and plant seeds, collect fruits and vegetables to eat or sell, you can fish and insects, and you can build useful tools or objects to furnish your home.
Where Fae Farm excels is in how it is rendered. extremely easy to carry out all these activities. To change instruments it is necessary to press one key or at most two; From the map it is possible to track the position of a character and reach him in an instant; Above all, the ability to run, dive, and jump more or less anywhere makes moving around the island much more immediate than in many other similar games. However, the freedom to explore is limited by bramble walls and other obstacles, and small dungeons will need to be tackled in order to return the area to normal. However, even if these caves are populated by aggressive creatures, Fae Farm's dungeon exploration moments never present a demanding or interesting challenge, nor do they feel as functional as the fights in Dragon Quest Builders. As you obtain new furniture and items, your performance in battle also improves, as your health and stamina gauge increases, as does the damage dealt. However, the impression is that the fights were inserted more to add one more activity to the game's already long list. In the first few hours you don't really realize how many things you can do in Fae Farm and it's only when you start reaching new locations and unlocking additional farms that you get an idea of the amount of systems and content.
Fae Farm could have been an exceptional exponent of its genre, if it weren't for the fact that the developers have sensationally underestimated one of the most important aspects of a game that promises to make you live a life inside a village: the cast of characters. Leaving aside the cartoon aesthetic very similar to the MySims style (which you may or may not like, but which is certainly not very original), all the inhabitants of Azoria are mannequins that are impossible to get attached to. Of course, they have their uses, they buy and sell items, assign missions and give useful information about how the game works. However they have no personality, they tend to be always cheerful and condescending, never tell interesting stories, and don't seem to have any character of their own.
In Animal Crossing the other inhabitants can have a bad day, be a little sad and share little stories that make their tastes better known; And how many times have we empathized with the inhabitants of Stardew Valley? Maybe we would have liked them more or less - we were in love with some and hated others - but there is no doubt that we really had the feeling of sharing our virtual life with other believable characters. In Fae Farm this feeling is completely missing and even the possibility of marrying someone becomes useless, if it is put there for the sake of it. It's a real shame that a game that fails at character characterization is a game that excels at character characterization. personalization and inclusion- The editor allows you to change the aesthetics of your alter ego regardless of any gender distinction, you can greatly change your body size, and it is possible to wear a hijab or turban from the start. This diversity is also seen in the appearance of the other inhabitants, and that is precisely why it is sad to see such a disappointing writing job.
Conclusions
Tested version Nintendo Switch, PC con Windows Holygamerz.com 6.5 Readers (5) 8.2 your voteFae Farm is a life simulator with excellent foundations. From fishing to creating items, from home furnishings to hunting insects, and of course tending your garden and fighting in caves, the game has many systems and many activities to do. However, on this basis the developers have built a truly unforgettable experience, especially for its characters: there is not one likeable or interesting one, there is not even half of them that stands out for their character or personal story, and in the end you realize that you find yourself doing the same old activities in an empty and, despite the title, very unmagical environment.
PRO
- A sea of activities to do
- Exquisitely inclusive in the editor and in the aesthetics of the protagonists.
AGAINST
- Characters completely devoid of character.
- Dungeon exploration and combat is not fun or interesting.
- The MySims graphic style is really unoriginal.
