Fae Farm is an upcoming farming sim role-playing sport the place gamers get to craft, develop crops, are inclined to animals, adorn and use spells to discover the enchanted island of Azoria. The sport could be performed solo or co-up with as much as 4 gamers, and it’s developed and printed by Phoenix Labs. It comes out on September eighth on PC and Nintendo Change.
It is price noting that there are two main, generally conflicting, sides of Fae Farm: the comfy farming simulator the place you’re rising crops, tending to your animals, romancing scorching NPCs and every little thing else you’d count on from the style. You are doing all of it in a captivating, enchanted world referred to as Azoria the place you end up at some point and meet a solid of colourful and various residents. You begin off with a strong character creator that has varied pores and skin tones, hair choices and even pronouns; strive not spending an hour simply customizing your character. The coziness can also be in each nook of this island, however Fae Farm takes it one step additional by gamifying stated coziness. Each piece of home ornament out of your mattress to chairs, tables and wall artwork has a player-related ability related to it akin to mana, well being and coziness. The extra “cozy furnishings” you add to your own home, the extra power you get. It is a enjoyable strategy to make gamers extra invested in adorning their houses, however if you happen to have been anticipating a totally customizable, effort-free simulator then you definitely is likely to be barely disenchanted. Each piece of house and plot of land customization comes with crafting and exploring (together with unlocking new colours), and that is precisely what makes Fae Farm much more than only a cozy farming simulator. Friendship and romance quests are slightly extra simple than you may want in a sim sport, however a number of dates with Jack and Nhamashal proved to be extraordinarily charming and stress-free—not fairly how real-life dates go, in my expertise. Being despatched again house after the in-game clock turns midnight means you might need a love letter in your mailbox the subsequent morning, and I discovered myself trying ahead to these much more than the in-game occasion celebrations.
The opposite facet of this sport is its fight system, the “magical twist” portion of this assessment title, if you happen to could. There are three main dungeons in Fae Farm: the Saltwater Mines, Floating Ruins and Scorched Caverns, every with a definite set of enemies, sources and goals. The widespread theme amongst all three is the presence of 25 flooring, every sealed with a door it’s worthwhile to unlock and “jumbles” you need to defeat. You achieve entry to a number of magic spells all through the sport utilizing a employees such because the Vortex and Attraction spells, after which the fight gameplay itself could be fairly easy: you choose a spell, choose your magic employees and maintain down a button to knock again enemies. The place the magical twist turns out to be useful moreso than simply within the dungeons is the huge quantity and number of potions you may brew in Fae Farm. Two in style ones that I saved coming again for only for the giggles are the Cloud of Unhappiness, a literal cloud that begins following you and waters a number of crops routinely, and the Zoom potion, which will increase your motion pace considerably for a restricted period of time. In fact, there’s additionally loads of potions which might be important for fight, however I used to be definitely extra drawn to those that boosted the farming sim portion of the sport for me.
This back-and-forth between dungeoning and farming may not appear to be everybody’s cup of (iced) tea—once more, provided that you have been anticipating one or the opposite. Nevertheless, that’s precisely the factor that Fae Farm excels at. Mining within the dungeons for copper, iron and different sources with a potion that offers further mining energy and effectivity is crucial to upgrading your pickaxe, sickle and different farming instruments. As an alternative of those two components clashing in a genre-defying approach, they complement one another to kind a sport that’s way more replayable than I may have imagined, and this gameplay loop reveals that there’s a substantial quantity of content material and depth right here. The comparisons to video games like Dreamlight Valley are inevitable, and whereas that is a sport I’ve spent over 100 hours on throughout a number of platforms, it faltered for me when it targeted way more on cosmetics and decorations than including new gameplay and non-repetitive content material for quests. Plus, multiplayer nonetheless appears like a pipe dream there.
It is vital to notice that Fae Farm will not be a stay service sport like the aforementioned Disney sport, however moderately a boxed product. Phoenix Labs has already talked about that the deluxe version comes with two downloadable content material packs to be launched earlier than June 2024, and primarily based on the 40+ hours I’ve already put in, I can solely say I may simply get misplaced on the earth of Azoria for a really very long time.
Each part of Fae Farm seems breathtaking with eye-popping, wealthy colours and extremely interesting visuals. The cartoonish environments assist make the world of Azoria appear and feel relaxed and chill. This interprets to how the island made me really feel, whether or not I used to be twirling round, bouncing on purple shrooms, chopping down timber or fishing aimlessly on the docks for hours. It could not revolutionize the style on this side in comparison with loads of different cozy video games, however there’s additionally no denying it: Fae Farm is jaw-droppingly stunning.
Each dungeon has a novel appear and feel to it, which makes the expertise much less monotonous as you journey on for a particular useful resource. The Saltwater Mines are like a breeze out in nature as you are surrounded by greens and rocky hills whereas the Floating Ruins mesmerize you with their magic and the endless bouncing between platforms. The Scorched Caverns are this creator’s private favourite—one thing about hearth all the time hooks me—with their falling platforms and awe-inspiring volcanic visuals. Azoria is simply beautiful.
It is fairly clear after spending so many hours in Azoria that this sport is extraordinarily polished from begin to end. There have been little to no hiccups all through my expertise enjoying this on Steam and, impressively, the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally. It does appear to be the sport is catered extra in the direction of handheld/controller primarily based on some menu choices and varied observations on the UI/UX, however the keyboard-and-mouse expertise was simply as nice and easy. This can be barely totally different on the Nintendo Change, if video games like Dreamlight Valley are any indication.
One notable accessibility characteristic within the sport is the power to make fishing simpler. That is particularly helpful if you happen to discover the mechanic slightly tedious and/or if you happen to’d moderately pace up the method. The textual content within the NPC dialogue will not be fairly customizable, nevertheless it’s giant sufficient and readable on most display screen sizes. There are additionally 11 supported languages and customary show accessibility settings.
Fae Farm lives as much as its promise of mixing cozy farming sim with fight that does not lean an excessive amount of in the direction of one facet or the opposite. It comes with an addictive gameplay loop and three magical dungeons so you may adorn the house and land of your desires, making this a elegant single-player or co-op expertise with placing visuals and an extremely memorable soundtrack.
