Recent reviews by Robin

Very poorly optimized. I do enjoy but feel I cannot recommend until they fix the optimization.

I had to refund it. I don't want to be burned yet again on a hopeful, 'it /can/ get better in time,' game. Right now? I would not say this game is worth the $26 I paid and look, I get it, it's in early access but with horse & farm game track records go, it needs more time to cook to feel worth the risk and right now it's not something I personally want to take a risk on. Come back in a few months or in a year.. or wait for when it hits release but not right now.

Is it worth it?
Currently, no.

I wanted to update my review to better reflect my thoughts on the game so far as well as remove some bits of my old review that weren't or are no longer needed based on the response I've received.

First of, I still do not feel this game is quiet worth it //yet.//
I do not regret my purchase and will continue to play the game, however in it's current state I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it.
There is promise of updates to fix a lot of the issues everyone is experiencing so I may update my review to be positive once those things are fixed.

I don't feel like I have a lot to really say about the game. I feel like I'm still learning to do stuff etc so I can't say a whole lot on the mechanics just that its been enjoyable despite the lag spikes, though there are a few also a few bugs I'll report soon, some graphic issues etc

I do want to say the atmosphere of the game is incredibly pretty and I cannot get enough of the rainy weather days, they are my jam lol

That aside, there are some things in the game I would love to see added sometime;
- Ability to pet neighbor pets cause I want to pet Pumpkin after seeing them :v
- I'd love if the wet ground had a different sound for running/vehicles, as far as I could tell there was no difference between wet and dry foot sounds but maybe my music was too loud to tell, lol
- It'd be cool to be able to sit on benches
- I'd love if the ranch animals made mooing/clucking/etc sounds that you can here within a certain radius of the ranch
- I'd like if there was a clap sound when praying
- Would be cool if doors made a sound when closing at least
- I'd also like a sound of a gacha opening when you use the machine


Now on to some of the Cons:
- This game is barely optimized. I have a power house of a pc and this game still lags like crazy. I recently got a faster mode of transportation in game and the games lag spikes became worse making it difficult to travel faster than running, there is promise it will be fixed and I'll remove this once it is.
- There are a lot of missing elements that I've heard other people talking about though for me the biggest disappointment was the lack of sounds; I've listed a few above I'd love to be added!
- The animals A.I. feels bugged? I learned I could enter the holding pen for the ranch and there were cows just spinning bugged out (Also during first farmers market the animals were opening and leaving the enclosure they had as if they too were ppl shopping around)
- Just like another I saw mention, was a bit unsatisfying to have my character just hold an image of food and then it poof when eating.
- Also not sure if this was a bug but at the first farmers market I put potatoes for sale and a guy came up asked for 3 and then my character said, 'looks like its a slow day' and I made 0 money and still had all my potatoes. Was just a very ??? moment

There are some things I have yet to experience like the battling and cooking. Some say the cooking is overly complex but I am curious to try it, I do not mind detailed cooking mechanics in my cozy life sims but once I've experience it more I'll return to give my take. As for the battle; I had 0 clue there were going to be battles and was very confused when selecting my game mode haha. Like cooking, once I experience more, I'll add my take on it.

That is all I can really say at the moment, I haven't played much more than 2 weeks in game as of writing this. I want to hold out hope that the devs will be working on this game, making it better, fixing and adding things for QoL but as of this current moment the game doesn't feel like its quite worth it yet, I'd wait till the update to fix optimization probably before giving it a go unless you do not mind lag problems o7

I do recommend this game, it is a lot of fun and the art style is pretty cute!
However; I do have a few things I like as well as a few things I dislike about this game that I feel are worth mentioning.

Gonna start with the Cons:
- There is not a lot of in-game cosmetics that you can get with in-game currency.
- The cosmetics you can get with in-game currency are incredibly rare to come by as its all past season stuff that is no longer available and thus you have to wait weeks, months, possibly even years to obtain a past cosmetic.
- All other cosmetics are like $9 or more depending (but also are limited at when you can get them); I have bought a few purchasable cosmetic packs but not all of them I would say are worth the tag. (Journey Pack; I love it a lot but you get less than if you buy the Nintendo Pack for roughly the same price.)
- Most instruments are also real money purchases.
- There appears to be store fronts in the aviary but you can't actually buy anything which is really confusing, you can just like.. look at what you own? which in the same area you can do that at a wall where you can change your clothes. Honestly wish they had some cosmetics you can buy that aren't tied to seasons, especially clothing like shirts/pants/shoes. Would be nice to have more outfit options, anyway.
- There are quests you cannot finish due to copyright issues; Would be nice if they removed them or had a way for newbies to complete them cause as a newbie I spent hours trying to figure out how to finish AURORA's quest just to find out it was a concert that happened years ago on a different platform before it was ever put on steam. The only way to finish it from what I've read (I've yet to do it) is to find someone who was there during the season that bought the season pass so they can take you as they can re-live the concert whenever they like.
- Over all sometimes the game feels unfinished and buggy, there is a bug that's been reported but never fixed where players cannot take out their candles suddenly which is awful when your candle is how you interact with literally everything.
- There are A LOT of cut scenes, some un-skippable; It'd be cool if they didn't show the all the same cut scenes once you've finished the first run.
- To go with the above, your camera gets yanked away from you A LOT. Sudden cut scenes if you are too close to specific walls and if you happen to be in the same room of a spirit someone else is doing? Now you have to watch its every movement till its done.

All those complaints aside the pros:
- The match-making/lobby surges are pretty good, you don't often have to wait long before other players are joined to you (though its still an online game with trolls and children playing so you might not always get a lobby worth your time, but that is not on the game).
- The freedom to fly around is just a lot of fun.
- There is a lot to explore and even 66hours in I still find myself coming across things I never explored or saw before.
- You aren't forced to interact with strangers; If you are asocial or introverted like me this game is nice cause you can't talk to or see other players unless you let them, strangers talking is just [...] and their characters are just dark shadows until you hold your torches together to reveal each other. (Though there is the downside that to freely talk you must add them as a friend or buy an item that you can both sit at otherwise you'd have to find a candle bench and possibly spend your in-game currency to chat with them.)

Over all, though I do have more gripes than good things to say I can't stress enough how much its actually a fun lil game to play, and hey, it is free to play so it's not harmful to give it a try and find out for yourself if you like it!

I decided to rewrite my review so here goes:

I am still not very far into the game but my first impressions are that I have good hopes for the game.

As the game is at the moment: It's a fun game, I enjoy exploring. I feel like my horse is just a tad too needy for attention sometimes or is at least always stressed no matter how much love I give them and I don't always understand what is wrong though it's still fun to ride around and eventually realize they might be hungry.. or I fed them way to much because I had no idea how hungry the horse was and it was acting weird :v

I'll update when I get further into the game as I feel after finally getting past my constant crusty horse issue [A bug that got fixed] I can finally get past the starting basics of the game and am actually enjoy it more, that was my biggest issue in my previous review so I feel more confident recommending now.

If you like horses and want a cute game to play that has them I say get it.
Though I still feel like controls are clunky for keyboard and mouse and might take time to get used to.

I can't recommend despite the fact I enjoy this game, there's just too many negatives with it as it stands.

Some negatives:
- The rewards you get per match are minuscule and the in-game shop is limited time before it refreshes. I was lucky to get a dragon armour that was in shop in the 2nd week because I was farming for something else in the first week and missed it because the shop refreshes ever SIX [6] days. You get max like 50 [gold (idr the currency name so I'm going to call it gold)] per match. It's heavily underwhelming and unrewarding.

- There's daily missions that give you a key, every 1, 3, 5 and 7 keys I think it was gives you a "better" chest, my partner got the 7 key chest it was underwhelming. I got the 5 key chest it was even more so, it felt like a chest that a 1 or 3 key would get instead.

- Dailies are bugged at times, no signs of fixes, I could have gotten the 7 key chest but the game refused to acknowledge me doing the task despite me doing it.

- Weekly missions are too difficult at times & too vague at times with rewards that are too crap imo to feel worth the effort [less than 1k money and less than 1k exp]. Vagueness being, 'do this task [like healing/armouring up a teammate, killing with mines or dodging attacks]' Okay, I go to do task in a match type I prefer aaaaaand it turns out I had to do the think in a different match type but it didn't tell me that.

- There's no GOOD way to evade unless you are a phantom maybe MAYBE a marauder, I seen plenty asking for a barrel roll type evade which I think would be amazing honestly, atm your best bet to evade attacks is getting lucky enough for a fire ball to miss but you cannot EVER evade flame breathe, you just gotta hope you don't die before the attacker has to refresh the ability.

Might add more as I think of them, but yeah, this game is fun to a degree but lacks motivation and rewards.