Harvestella: Playing it like there’s no other game waiting

 

As I’m reaching the 60-hours mark and the end of chapter 6 (out of 9), I feel the time has come to sit down and commit my Harvestella impressions to paper. But first, you may wonder: why am I even playing this game at all, after dismissing it in my Switch New Classics reviews? Well, my gaming instinct just wouldn’t forget it, and started pinning for it again after some time. That’s pretty weird, but not unseen before — so much so that I actually wrote a post about that phenomenon. For now, suffice it to say that I was right to cave in and get my paws on Harvestella again, as I’m enjoying it tremendously.

 

 

That’s not to say that Harvestella is a great game, or that I’d even recommend it to any fellow gamer. In fact, Harvestella is bristling with flaws; and I can safely say that I’m enjoying it despite these flaws. I’m not talking about minor stuff such as the bizarre design of the male characters, but rather about serious gameplay shortcomings. Lets’ break down my Harvestella experience, shall we? 

 

 

Fighting system: I love real-time combat as a rule, but Harvestella’s take on is too complex for its own good. The main issue here is that you cannot indulge in melee combat without taking copious amounts of damage, because a) foes can attack you from a distance, and b) they can attack you no matter what you’re doing. As a result, you’ll take damage every step of the way: while you approach foes, but also while you’re unleashing combos and skills, moving around or even dodging. 

 

 

How do you alleviate that issue? Well, there are two ways. You can go down the intended road, by using the Job system: switch party members and Jobs on the fly, to target opponents’ weaknesses and dispose of them quickly and neatly. Or you can go down the road I chose, by grinding so much that you become overlevelled and can take attacks without batting an eyelid! Now that I’ve reached that state, I can honestly say that I relish fighting; but I can just as honestly admit that it was an absolute chore in the game’s early stages, when I had to keep an eye on my HP bar at all times. 

 

 

Dungeon crawling: It should surprise absolutely no one that this is my favourite part of the game. Harvestella’s dungeons are gorgeous, well-designed and full of appetizing secrets, and I have a blast not only exploring them, but also revisiting them on a regular basis. Indeed, there’s always a good reason to revisit dungeons in that game — to fulfil side quests, to forage, to defeat previously overpowered foes, to access previously locked areas metroidvania-style, you name it. 

 

 

Then again — and once again — things were not that cosy in the early stages. The time management factor frustrated the life out of me at first, as it forced me to exit dungeons and scurry back to bed just when I was getting into the groove of crawling. However, I quickly realised that Harvestella’s dungeons are fiendishly designed to enable another type of crawling groove, which I’d dub ‘iterative exploration’. Instead of losing yourself in long crawling sessions, you stack up much shorter ones; yet each of these short sessions gives you a palpable sense of accomplishment and allows you to progress a bit further, until you’ve made the whole dungeon your b*tch. 

 

 

This is made possible thanks to a clever in-dungeon bypass system: as you progress, you can unlock shortcuts and teleportation points that allow you to skip already explored sections. This design provides neat intermediate goals, as well as a fulfilling sense of progression; and I can honestly claim that I get a blast out of Harvestella’s brand of crawling. 

 

 

Farming, cooking and crafting: The weakest link! Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit here; it would be fairer to talk about ‘missed opportunities’. We have a farming, cooking and crafting system that could have been awesome, yet ends up being merely palatable due to a number of questionable design choices. The crafting system suffers from the teeny-tiny number of available items — at that point, it would have been just as convenient to make said items available in shops. The cooking system is hampered by the rarity of some ingredients, which makes many dishes unavailable for some infuriatingly long time — I mean, do you know how long it took me to finally harvest that darn Queen Leaf and be able to brew Tea? Some 45 hours, that’s how long! 

 

 

But these annoyances pale compared to the crippling flaw that maims the farming system; and that crippling flaw is none other than the money balance. To put it simply, all farming-related purchases, from mere seeds to fancy farm improvements, are ludicrously expensive; yet at the same time, money is ridiculously hard to come by, despite the fact that there are a ton of items to sell. Foraged items sell for a pitifully low price — including stuff that should command high prices, such as gold ore or super-rare materials. Crafted and transformed goods are no better, as they sell for a price that’s way too low to justify the hassle of mass-producing them in order to gain money. 

 

  

Take the Sudor Pepper life cycle, for instance: a single plant retails for 265 grillas, and can be harvested five times in a row with a growing period of four days for the first harvest and three days for the subsequent ones. Grown Sudor Peppers sell for 265 grillas as well; it can be transformed into Black Pepper, which sells for 335 grillas. This means that a single Sudor Pepper plant will grant you a benefit of 1410 grillas at most, over a period of 16 days — not exactly a dream rentability, methinks. 

 

 

These poor rates of return directly — and direly — impact farming, and the enjoyment that can be derived from it. Instead of sowing, harvesting and expanding your farm like it like it’s going out of fashion, you have to scrape by and carefully consider each purchase. Harvestella packs some great farming potential; but one must accept that years of game time — and dozens of hours of actual play time — are mandatory to unlock that great potential. 

 

 

Story: In true Squeenix fashion, we have a meaty and convoluted story to back up the crawling and the farming. Whether that story is good or not can be debated; I can honestly say I don’t expect much from it, which means that I probably won’t be disappointed in the end. It so happens that I tackled every single side quest, for the sake of getting precious money and items first and last; yet some of these quests packed truly moving developments, which was a plus. In fact, I daresay that these secondary side quests stories are more touching and interesting that the main story, which is often too ludicrous for its own good — and poorly told to boot. 

 

 

For instance (spoilers!): how long are we gonna keep pretending that Aria comes from a distant future, when it’s actually painfully obvious that she comes from a distant past? I started suspecting this a few chapters ago already; and as I’m inching closer to the end of chapter 6, the hints have piled up so much that they might as well be the Everest. Surely it should be obvious by now that Aria was absorbed whole by the Seaslight, fell into a coma of sorts and remained in stasis until she was discovered by Ein at the beginning of the game, right? How come the whole crew is still clueless about the whole thing, despite seeing the revealing footage in the Astrum Helix facility? I cannot help but think that this is very poor exposition indeed — or that Harvestella is geared towards young players that haven’t consumed a lot of fiction yet and won’t see the plot twist coming from a mile away (end of spoilers). 

 

 

As you see, I’m not exactly lavishing praise on Harvestella; and yet, I’ve been playing it for 60 hours, and I firmly intend to get myself more of it. Harvestella’s saving grace can be summed up in one sentence: that game is more than the sum of its parts. Taken separately and on their own merits, the story, farming and dungeon crawling sides feel too weak and would undoubtedly fail to hold the player’s attention; yet once put together, they gel and complete each other amazingly well. There is no shortage of things to do in Harvestella; not only that, but the game is blatantly designed to generate a flurry of activity. Focusing solely on one side of the game — whether it be farming&crafting, dungeon crawling or side questing — quickly feels boring and tedious; it’s much more thrilling and rewarding to switch between these sides on the fly, from one day to the next or even over the course of a single day. 

 

 

I’m on a roll now; the game is nearly playing itself, and I could go on effortlessly like that for many more hours. And talking about this, it’s time for my daily playing session! I’ll see you soon with more gaming goodness, dear fellow gamers; in the meantime, keep playing and take care!