Review of Fae Farm Switch: A court of charms and turnips
Our Verdict
Fae Farm is a delightful, addictive, and unique farming game with a lovely art style and interesting world. Though the price tag may seem heavy, it’s worth it for fans of the genre who crave a new agricultural adventure.
Greetings from Azoria, my beloved wanderer-turned-farmer, where abundant food awaits you and opportunities to make new acquaintances abound. Plant roots on your new farm and get to work in Fae Farm. You'll meet people and engage in mining, foraging, fishing, and so much more.
So, what precisely is Fae Farm and what benefits does it provide? The game is a farming simulation with a homely atmosphere, taking place on the island of Azoria, where humans and fae coexist together. When you get there, you find yourself in command of your own farm, where you may raise crops and animals like the cute Mamoos, who resemble Highland cattle, and the cuddly Chickoos, who like head pats.
But it's not all green-thumbed bliss—a captivating narrative that travels you to various parts of the island where missions need your help is woven throughout your to-do list. In addition to searching for metal and dodging opponents fashioned like anything from pocket watches to sculptures and even violins, you must forage, catch fish, and navigate three large tunnels.
Fae Farm's combat is easy to pick up, but you need stock up on potions to give you an advantage over opponents and shield you from hostile terrain. Additionally, you have a magic staff that has its own collection of useful spells, such as a deployable whirlwind and a charm that will temporarily halt adversaries from hitting you.
On your farmland, you may establish a pattern of planting, watering, and harvesting an abundance of crops while you're not smashing statues in the mines. Even better, you can set up a tonne of useful equipment to bake a variety of dishes, weave wool from your Woolyhorns, and polish jewels for sale. It's really simple to place these items: just open your menu, choose the recipe, and set it down. Unlike previous farming games, you won't have to sprint from storage to the placement spot since all the necessary resources will be pulled straight from your inventory.
You enter your little house as soon as you start to feel a little worn out. In addition to decorating it to appear nice and cosy, you may fill it with a variety of objects that when you wake up provide you additional health, energy, and mana.
But enough of that; the Fae Realm is really amazing. As you go through the narrative, this enigmatic region opens up, giving you access to a second farm that you may care to, replete with a private fishing pier and another home to furnish. Here, unique fae food is cultivated and your crops get prolonged irrigation. Additionally, you may keep charming Lunens from the Fae Realm and Spriggans as cattle. There are also rivers to fish in, a vast forests full of catchable creatures, and a centre area with merchants.
There is no doubt that the developers of farm games put a great deal of affection into this game since some of the mechanisms are just amazing and make managing everyday tasks on the farm seem quite natural. For example, you are not penalised if you remain out late into the night tilling soil or fishing. You just return home and wake up the next day unharmed.
In relation to tilling, your active tool will automatically switch to the appropriate one as you do your agricultural tasks. You will use the axe if you are facing a tree, and you will pull out the watering can if you are near dry crops. This is a really good thing since it keeps me from inadvertently digging up my precious potatoes before they're ready.
Before you start screaming and wondering why this game is worth its salt in the farm genre, consider this: apart from the tools you have, there are no improvements for your farm. Instead, it encourages you to be inventive with spells and potions. After all, this is Fae Farm. A whirlwind to gather more crops than you can swing a stick at in one go, a melancholy potion that watered crops as you go, and a jar of bees to manufacture are all available. No, I still don't know why that one is there, but the others are very useful. In addition, remedies may be made quite easily and sold for a good price.
Playing Fae Farm is simple, and there's always something interesting to do on your farm, in the mines, and when gathering materials for food or potions. I really adore this concept, even if some of you may disagree. "Ah, I need a few fresh greens, fish, and some ore for a friendship quest... better head to the forest, the mines, and then the ocean!" is how my days usually go. But hold on, I have to feed my animals and look to all of my farms. I should weave some materials and make some dishes to sell as well. Oh, and remove any mature crops. This is how it goes until midnight, at which point my character mysteriously returns home and the day comes to a conclusion, satisfied with the number of errands completed.
Although there aren't any issues with Fae Farm, the creator Phoenix Labs could make a few improvements. Despite all the other customisation choices, you can be left with a strange name that doesn't belong in the game since your character starts the game with the name of your Switch account.
Fae Farm's relationship-building aspect is present. I flirted with a few other eager townspeople before I was able to court and marry an acceptable bachelor, but when you are married, there's really no incentive to talk to your spouse anymore. Speaking with anybody also causes the dialogue to get a little monotonous since everyone brings up the task you just finished to aid the village. Although I don't find this to be a big deal, other players may be disappointed that there isn't a more developed social scene to explore.
After playing the game for a bit, I noticed some murky visuals from the June preview. To my great satisfaction, while playing the whole game, I have not encountered any performance problems of this kind. The game takes a minute or so to load initially, but after that, everything works well.
A pre-release patch has already been released by the developer to address a few minor flaws that caused weird behaviour in animals but had no actual impact on the gameplay. My Cottontails are no longer getting caught in fences and machines. This patch is really appreciated, and hopefully it will result in a seamless release.
In order to dispel certain myths and calm people down, I believe I should address some community issues before launch. First off, Stardew Valley's very large content library and, quite frankly, absurdly cheap price point have, for better or worse, altered our expectations of farming games. Any other game finds it difficult to compete.
The price of Fae Farm is the concern that is brought up the most. I believe that $59.99/£49.99 is a hefty price for any game, even triple-A games like Pikmin 4, and it annoys me that the game is still $59.99 on the Switch instead of the reasonable $39.99 that it was originally listed for on Steam. Still, I believe the price is not wholly excessive since all future DLC is included in the full purchase, unlike other games that cost the same or more but perform worse and have much less content.
No, I'm not being forced to say anything; I simply thought the game was extremely, really fun. All I can do is suggest Fae Farm to anybody who is interested in the game; I think it would be great if there was a demo available for the Switch so that you could play it before paying the full price.
Veterans of the farming genre also relate more to the absence of a shipping bin and daily cap on the number of things you may sell. There are four tables to start with, each with eight spots for individual things. Even with the additional two product booths enabled, certain goods do sell for a considerable amount of money, which does affect how much you may make at any one moment. I never ran out of money, though—again, not compelled to say this. I would concede, however, that I'm thrifty when it comes to home improvement purchases.
Nobody can tell for sure right now, but given the strong criticism, notably on Reddit, the shipping in particular may be changed in the future. It would be quite advantageous to sell the full stack, or even a stack of up to 10 products. Implementing this while exchanging our beans makes sense since you can also stack in your inventory.
Let's quickly examine Fae Farm's multiplayer functionality. You may navigate the mines and mucks with up to three other players when you play together. I'm not sure how the multiplayer aspect of Fae Farm works since I just used Animal Crossing New Horizon's multiplayer to flog items on Nookazon, so maybe I don't trust my friends enough to operate a farm with them. I can see that it would be quite helpful for being in the mines, particularly in the latter stages when opponents might pile on top of you. But everyone best keep their hands off my beets back on the farm.
Adding a mysterious element to your collection of games with a farming theme, Fae Farm is an excellent way to add some variety to your tilling of soil. Even after 40 hours in-game, I'm far into year two and still have a tonne of work to accomplish as well as some plot to go through.
While not every player of farm simulation games want a collect-a-thon, we all have various criteria for what constitutes a decent game; Fae Farm just so happens to meet almost all of mine. I haven't been this engrossed in a game for a while, and I want to keep farming my purple fairy potatoes in peace for the foreseeable future.
We're thinking about including Fae Farm in our list of the top gardening games as well as the greatest farm games that you can play on Switch and mobile devices.