Game has good bones, but the early access limitation of One year is a big downer for me as it eliminates the need to engage in many systems. I know that they're expanding it to 2 years sometime in 2027, but for now I think I encourage people to wait. I'll still recommend it, but with the caveat that you will probably enjoy it much more once they expand the amount of story content. Below I have included my thoughts about the game as it is, trying to be honest with systems and how they work.
Graphics: The graphics are decent but they are consistent which is a plus. It feels bespoke and not an asset flip or AI slop.
Story: Engaging even if the failure modes break the suspension of disbelief at times.
Dialogue: Eh, it's alright but I find myself wishing for the very in-depth and reactive system from Fields of Mistria.
Characters are likeable enough, and each are pretty distinct from one another visually and personality.
Romance: Not yet implemented.
Progression: Tools, farm buildings, and perks which you unlock with levels. Compelling enough. There are also recipes for farm buildings you unlock by giving unique items to the manor. It's sorta time locked as you can't reasonably get more than say 70 items donated before the end of spring. That's alright, but just figured I'd mention it.
Farming: Good, if relatively straightforeward. You hoe grass, plant seeds, water it, weed it occasionally, then choose to harvest when ripe or once it goes to seed. Going to seed reduces the output a lot but retains the seed keeping you more self-reliant. This is much less useful than it would be if you had more than one of each season. There's compost as well, which you mostly get from compost heaps. You put in either food, or biodegradable debris like plant debris, guano (mining), or sticks. You get far more from using food and guano, so if you want to use plant debris from weeding, prepare to make like 6 of these as they take 5 days to process a load.
One positive here is the food preservation as it's pretty consistent with medieval food preservation techniques (Drying, smoking, Vinegaring, Salting, Honeying, oiling).
Watering crops takes ages if you plant as much as I did, as well as energy. So you'll really want to invest in irrigation pipes, which realistically requires you to go mining. Think of them like stardew valley sprinkers that you need to manually activate. Once placed they require no resources unlike the automation from Fields of Mistria.
Cooking: The game uses a somewhat generic system where ingredients are lumped into groups, and each recipe just pulls from groups. For example, one recipe uses one vegetable and one herb. So you can use any non-root vegetable, and any herb. This includes preserved ingredients which is nice. Cooking requires a station, and it takes an hour to cook. I found myself wanting more cooking stations but the farm low key wasn't big enough to feel comfortable adding too many more.
Fishing: Basically a one-button quick time event. I found I could catch most fish even without the upgraded rod, and once I upgraded my rod once to copper I could catch every fish.
Mining: Pretty boring If I'm going to be honest. The mines are just rock, ore, and chests. That's it. There are weak spots which if you blatantly ignore the warning you can cause a mine collapse which will reset the mine, but i've never had that happen to me. No monsters, no holes, no fishing in caves.
Ranching: You have barns or coops for the fantastical animals, they have a max of 4 adults with the first tier and I think 8 for the second tier. You can have as many babies as you want. Animals have a weight which determines slaughter results, a relationship bar, happiness, and an age. Animals will grow into adults, then eventually into geriatric animals. They can and will die of old age so you're encouraged to slaughter them before they grow old.
Music: The game's music is alright if a bit repetitive. I don't have a negative reaction to any songs (looking at you stardew valley summer theme) but one song makes me think of a minecraft song with the opening notes every dang time.
Difficulty: I played on the difficulty below normal, but I think I would have been totally fine on normal or even hard. I've been optimizing my play patterns so I expect that it's probably better for first time players to play either on my difficulty or the one below unless you like being efficient. The game ramps up difficulty the longer you play, but It's unclear how the food pressures would continue past the first year for reasons I will not state. The ramping difficulty solves I think one of stardew valley's pitfalls, which was there was less need to grow your farming empire once the early needs were solved.
In game info: Not great. I found myself alt-tabbing to visit the wiki for stuff like the fruiting time of trees to check before cutting trees down. I wish there was an in game codex or encyclopedia or the like.
Economy: I found myself pressed for money most of the time, which is mostly good, but the game offers a lot of cosmetic options like furniture and clothing which I never really felt I was able to spare the money for. I only made it to the end of spring so I suspect this would change once I got to Fall or the like, as the time pressures get easier due to progression and irrigation.
