Review of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Switch: cultivate rice, battle demons

Our Verdict

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin can be confusing to start with, but getting past the initial hardships opens up beautiful levels and satisfying gameplay

Externally, You should never judge a book by its cover, even if Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin seems to be your typical agricultural simulator. In the game Of Rice and Ruin, you take on the role of the brash goddess Sakuna, who is exiled to a demon-infested island from her heavenly palace when some raucous mortals come in and smash the rice gift she had made for the great deity, Lady Kamuhitsuki.

The objective of the game is to safeguard the people that were sent to the island with you and grow your rice paddies stronger while warding off demons. Given that Sakuna is the daughter of the harvest and warrior gods, she gains strength in proportion to the quality of your rice. You can explore the island and take on some exciting side-scrolling action in the dungeons when you're not knee-deep in rice.

I felt a little lost during my first few days on the island as I struggled through my harvesting chores. I was unable to distinguish between hulling and threshing, and the game was not going to provide me with any guidance.

I wish the game had held my hand a bit more, since I know very little about rice, so I could have prevented overwatering the crop or placing seeds too near to one other. Nevertheless, I like how realistic the agricultural aspects of the game are, and after my first somewhat good harvest, I felt like I had accomplished something for putting in the additional effort.

It's easy to switch between fighting and farming. Sometimes I would go into the woods the following day to fight demons in order to defend the slothful humans who remained at home, and I would spend the whole day tending to the harvest and gathering bugs from around my house. I was first uneasy since I didn't feel like the game was attempting to sway me one way or the other, but in the end, I learned to value this duality.

Sakuna's learning curve extends beyond the production of rice. The side-scrolling dungeon parts begin quite simply, with you just mashing the X and Y buttons to defeat every adversary. I was thrown into a boss encounter out of nowhere, and I discovered that my assaults weren't really accomplishing anything. In addition, the arena was tiny, which meant that I was always pressed to the wall, and a never-ending stream of lesser foes would always find a way to take me down. However, I was unable to figure out why I was weak, so I went back and corrected my mistakes over the course of many in-game days.

At that point, I realized. My crop was ready for harvest, and winter was on the horizon. After I finished, Sakuna became more powerful because of my rice-based victory, so I went back to the boss's lair and easily defeated it. Once again, I would have really enjoyed the first few hours of the game much more if it had held my hand or alerted me when I was moving too quickly instead of confusingly obstructing my progress.

However, the time I spent having trouble in fighting did show how clumsy the combat system is. For example, there's a wait before you can try again if you click the incorrect button, and once an adversary is downed, they can't be injured until they get back up. This game is largely peaceful, but every time I made a dumb mistake, my blood would boil a little.

Despite my objections, a lot of my early concerns vanished really soon, and even though I sometimes felt lost, exploring was a genuine pleasure. Backtracking didn't seem as difficult because to the lovely Japanese artwork, and the calming music calmed me down while I sprinted, leaped, and wrestled over the map. During the winter, I used to often keep Sakuna up late into the night just to gaze in wonder at the snow-capped mountains.

Having completed the first year of the game, I felt secure in my abilities. I expertly sowed seeds and gave them the proper amount of water, certain that my efforts would eventually result in a significant stat rise. In order to obtain additional resources for gourmet feasts and more powerful weaponry, I explored and then re-explored caverns and other regions of the landscape. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a very fulfilling experience that may be had for hours by those who are prepared to put in the effort.