At the pole of “masochistic” adventures like Dark Souls, there are video games that want you to let yourself go, relax and almost, almost, do whatever you want. With that spirit came games like Minecraft, Animal Crossing o Stardew Valley. Now, it’s time to Fae Farmwhich arrives on September 8 on Nintendo Switch and PC.
The new of Phoenix Labs (creators of Dauntless, a much more serious game) is pure escapism for audiences who want to let their imagination fly, but at their own pace.
The analysis of Fae Farm in Hobby Consolas:
Fae Farm gameplay and gameplay
Fae Farm puts us in the shoes of an anonymous hero (we give him a name, face and identity) who finds a message for help in a bottle. Therefore, he travels to the Azorean islanda quiet and pleasant place that, even so, suffers the ravages of to magic. There is a good one, of course, but there is also an uncontrollable side that causes whirlpools around the island.
Our objective is find out what is causing these “blockages” and solve it, while, little by little, we build our home and our own farm on the island.
So, the game has two aspects. On the one hand, there would be “farm simulator“and on the other, the most adventurous one with light role-playing touches, in which the magical component has more weight.
The farm part takes place next to the house where we start the game. There, we can place flowerbeds to plant flowers or tubers, for example, or improve cubicles to raise chickens or sheep, with which to obtain eggs or wool.
The animals we care for have their needs.: pampering them from time to time, feeding them or taking them out to air will help them be happier and more productive. Logically, the plants must be watered and harvested when necessary.
We also have a rod to fish in the river or in the sea, with a simple “tug of war” minigame. Little by little, we can acquire tables to cook what we catch or collect, ovens… And, of course, seeds to plant everything we can think of. We can choose to have a small “seed” or lavish plantations, depending on what we want to complicate.
We are also accompanied by a pick and shovel to crush minerals, dig up sand and, ultimately, find all kinds of materials. The cane, pickaxe, shovel or watering can can be improved with more resistant and effective versions, as we will now see.
Our house can also be decorated to taste with poufs, wardrobes, beds… Some of this furniture will improve our comfort meter, which will help our health, energy and mana statistics (we will see later) to be better restored after sleeping.
The house itself can be expanded and there are lots of floors, wallpapers or more to make a house to suit us.
All this could not be carried out without exploring the island to find recipes for new constructions or, above all, without talking to the NPCs that inhabit these lands. Most of them are in the main town. Some will only offer us conversation, but others have shops to improve our tools, buy clothes or seeds…
With some of the NPCs we can Start a friendship based on talking to them or responding to their requests. If we work hard, It is even possible to start a courtship or get married.although it is a task that requires a lot of pick and shovel… Never better said.
Buying the different upgrades will help you progress, but The main story is developed by talking to the key people at each moment., who will give us missions. Sometimes, they can be as simple as collecting an object, but other times, we will have to overcome entire dungeons. Thus, we will earn florins, the in-game currency, and we will get keys or new key objects.
There’s also secondary missions or simply the possibility of exploring at our leisure to see how the fauna changes (there are day-night cycle and a day lasts approximately 18 minutes) depending on the time of day or to discover new paths. Thanks to a magical staff, we can break the thorns that block the path to find new routes.
A dungeon
At certain times, inevitably, we will have to visit the dungeons, which takes us to the more adventurous side. To give you an idea, the first dungeon has 25 levels, but before each one, there is a pedestal.
If we place the right seal (which must be made with the correct ingredients on the farm, of course), we can open the door to the next level and unlock quick access to the current one, in case we decide to leave the dungeon and return later.
In these dungeons we do find enemies, but all of them very cute in design and with very simple attack routines. Our objective in the dungeons is to finish them off and find stranger materials to craft key items. In the final level of the dungeon, very special beings will be waiting for us…
To attack enemies, we can use the staff and hitbut little by little we will learn magical abilities which, logically, consume mana. It is important to stock up on potions that restore health or mana before entering dungeons.
As we said, it’s up to us to set the pace. Although there are passage of seasons, changing weather (it can rain and, if we get too wet, we may catch a cold and have to drink hot tea before it affects our health) and day-night cycle, the main missions can be undertaken when it suits us best.
The rest of the tasks can be more linked to “seasonality” and that means that the environment is always changing. Before midnight or at a change of season we will find different bugs to hunt, for example.
In addition, we can choose to enjoy the adventure alone or in multiplayer, local or online for up to 4 users. The advantage of multiplayer is that, logically, we can help each other in dungeons, but it is also possible to visit other players’ farms or share progress.
Fae Farm Duration
It is difficult to establish a duration to overcome only the main elements of the story, since it is almost inevitable to be distracted by secondary missions or errands to manage the farm or create items, many of which will be needed to progress.
This way it is easy for the adventure to catch you a few dozen hours and, from there, infinity is the limit, since the customization aspect of both our house and farm and the character is highly encouraged. How long will it take you to find that cute color you wanted so much for your home rug?
Is Fae Farm difficult?
As is often the case with other games of this type, Fae Farm wants the player to feel comfortable at all timesso generally the difficulty is quite relaxed, except in the most advanced dungeons.
There are no difficulty levels, so the most you can complicate your life is by accepting several missions at once. Some of them can be quite time-consuming, but it is more a matter of spending time finding necessary ingredients and items than the complexity of the challenge itself.
Price and available platforms
Fae Farm is available for Nintendo Switch y PC. In the case of the console, it is possible to get it in both digital and physical editions, at a single price of 59.99 euroswhich perhaps seems a little too expensive to us.
In the case of PC, it can be purchased at standard digital edition for 39.99 euros, which makes it a fairly irresistible product, if you are a fan of the genre. There is also the Deluxe edition for 59.99 euros, which includes the soundtrack and two DLCs that will arrive at the end of the year and in 2024.
A playable massage
If there is one thing that Fae Farm makes clear from the beginning, it is that want the experience to be comfortable and friendly. The NPCs we talk to keep reminding us that we can go at our own pace, that we shouldn’t be afraid to experiment, and that it’s okay if something doesn’t turn out as expected.
It’s okay if we fall down a ravine (we don’t even lose health, we’ll just go back to where we were), it’s okay if we arrive at midnight (we’ll go home to sleep automatically, wherever we are) and, if we don’t have money to buy something, we can sell everything in the market, even sand.
There are many facilities so that we do not get overwhelmed (a radar, glossaries for everything, calendar…) and the only drawbacks may be, perhaps, that our inventory is quite small, so it fills up quickly (we can expand it later) and that making objects or cooking has a bar of progress that takes a long time to fill. The ideal is to leave things “being done” and come back after a while.
As often happens with games of this type (it is impossible not to remember Disney Dreamlight Valley, with which it has many similarities), the tasks are often based on collecting objects here and there, which can be somewhat tedious when suddenly they tell you “find 20 raw aquamarines and catch 10 trout.” Come on, it seems that the duration is lengthening for the sake of lengthening.
But, at the same time, no one rushes us. There is no limited time to accomplish things, nor penalties for taking too long.
Besides, the entire audiovisual aspect is comfortingfrom the wild and quite detailed settings to the characters that almost look like stuffed animals, even through some text dialogues in Spanish in which we promise you that we have read the word “cuqui” more times than we can count. The melodies change depending on the time of day or if there are enemies nearby.
So that, Fae Farm doesn’t invent the wheel and it can be a little heavy with the collection tasks, but it is certainly a great opportunity for anyone who wants a virtual vacation in a pleasant and friendly world, where everyone seems to drink All-Barn on a regular basis. Discovering his secrets little by little and becoming infected with his relaxation is a good “chill” plan.
