Despite what criticism might cause one to believe, flaws in a game’s design do not prevent one from enjoying said game. Players can overlook flaws and enjoy broken games like Pokémon Violet/Scarlet, and a game’s best aspects can overwhelm its poorer elements. Fae Farm achieves this phenomenon by centering its design around inclusivity and improvements to the typical farming simulation gameplay despite the issues posed by the game’s story and presentation.
Fae Farm’s strength comes from its commitment to inclusivity for all types of players, due to its quality-of-life features. Most farming sims require players to fidget with their limited inventory space and contend with strict consequences for staying up late. Fae Farm trashes these archaic design choices by giving the player constant access to tools and automatically switching to an appropriate farming tool for harvesting purposes and only ends the day without consequence if the player stays up too late.
One final boost to inclusivity comes from how the game encourages several playstyles. For example, the menu option helps players who manage to get stuck and the ability to jump allows players to explore as they please without fear! Meanwhile, the game encourages players to do whatever they want in a day as they can extend their daily energy in the form of energy-boosting pickups, cooking and magic spells.
The cooking system also provides a desired improvement to similar yet complex mechanics seen in other games. Whereas farming simulations require the player to obtain several specific items to cook dishes with little benefit relative to the time spent on acquiring said meal, Fae Farm reduces the complexity of these mechanics and makes cooking as easy as throwing everyday items into a fire. These design choices exhibit a thoughtfulness towards the player not usually seen in most modern titles.
This thoughtfulness comes at the cost of performance, however. Whenever the game loads something, the game may freeze up for a moment. These moments can last long enough to make one wonder whether the game crashed. The feeling of momentary brokenness only becomes accentuated when villagers slide across the ground instead of walking after the player converses with them.
Additionally, the story mode feels restrictive. While farming simulations feature a railroaded storyline or unlockable features, they reduce linearity by implementing inherently non-linear mechanics. Meanwhile, Fae Farm bluntly presents the player with a linear questline. In the early game, this causes the experience to feel like a lengthy tutorial. Of course, a linear story-driven farming simulation could work flawlessly, but the quality of such an idea depends heavily on the plot.
Unfortunately, Fae Farm’s plot lacks panache by leaning towards telling, not showing, and failing to do either. One usually witnesses important story events via a series of impact-lacking drawings, which causes one’s investment to feel like it amounted to nothing. Additionally, some events lack immediate explanation, like the sudden appearance of fairies throughout the village after the player clears the first dungeon.
Despite these flaws, the game still feels fun to play! All the common features of farming simulations are here and pleasant to experience. Additionally, the game adds to the fun by giving players a sense of constant achievement. Whether this accomplishment comes from the unlockable crafting recipes sprinkled throughout the land, the frequent level-ups, the immense number of crafting stations or the implementation of unlockable fast travel, Fae Farm provides a constant stream of engagement with the player.
The game also features multiplayer, albeit with a few caveats. While players can join their friends’ worlds and play through the game together, one must create a new character to do so. This makes sense on paper—as the ability to bring late-game materials into other worlds could wreck the game’s linear nature—but comes across as a pointless restriction in execution. Fae Farm is not a competitive online game, it is a story-driven farming game. The experience of other players would remain enjoyable despite their friends bringing in random items.
All in all, I give Fae Farm an 8/10!
