Everholm

I put alot of hours into this game and I enjoyed it but around 50 hours the game glitched and deleted my axe with no way to remake it. I was lucky to have a cloud save that hadn't downloaded yet from my deck and was able to start not too far back but it was annoying. I also wish the story wasn't so open ended. I really did enjoy the game play but disliked the grind but i get it. If an expansion comes out with a bit more story I would pick it back up for sure. It was an interesting take on the farm sims..

While it's a bit rough in some places, I'm finding it to be a really engaging game at least into the 3rd season, and I wanted to go ahead and add a review for the folks that are on the fence for buying it. Though I've enjoyed Harvest Moons and Rune Factories occasionally in the past, I wasn't an overwhelming Stardew Valley fan. Stardew is undeniably a wonderful game, but the slow movement pace was always tough for me to adjust to. On the other hand, after playing Fields of Mistria recently, I was very engaged with it and played through the extent of the Early Access content at the time with enthusiasm. Looking for something similar, I gave Everholm a shot, and I've been enjoying it even more than Mistria. The introductory story is intriguing, and the slightly spooky atmosphere of the game meshes very well with the cute-spooky visual presentation. It's also novel to play a game in the genre with an isometric perspective, and it really compliments the art within the town and around your farm, for example. I also personally enjoy that Everholm isn't quite as hand-holdy as many cozy farming sims often are. It's nice to be able to treat some of the goals as mysteries to be solved rather than simply chores to be ticked off the list. I also appreciate that the combat - while fairly simple - isn't overly simplified, and there's enough room that you can often pick your battles and use the space you're given to your advantage. There's enough challenge from balancing stamina, time, health, and inventory space that I find myself consistently enjoying dives into the Underworld instead of dreading another round of mining. So, while it can be a bit grindy and there are weirdly some performance inconsistencies that I wouldn't expect from this sort of game, I still wholeheartedly suggest giving it a try if you're a fan of the genre and also open to slightly novel variations on the theme.