Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, is a game that tries really hard to mix... rice and ruin, in a gameplay in which you'll find yourself both fighting/exploring, and growing your little field of rice.
The first thing that catch your eyes in the game is its visuals; a very charming and "genshin impactish" cell shading effect, that makes you feel like you're playing a Ghibli movie, making everything look SO cute (I myself just bought it because I saw a clip of Sakuna holding 2 DOGS AT ONCE), and pleasant to look at.
The elephant in the room is this obvious and obscene contrast between a (fucking deep) farming game, and a side-scrolling action adventurer, and let me tell you at once, they don't merge quite well, at least for me, they always felt like their both separate universes, and obviously the action sections are much more fun, while the farming ones are frankly boring (slightly relaxing), and if you don't wanna fuck up your stats, you better not let an NPC handle it.
But despite all that, Sakuna is a game that OVERFLOWS with love and passion from its creators (damn, I even cried at the end), characters are all so adorable and well developed (except Yui), and they all really grow into a family with you, your little Mountain Pass is a character on itself, I felt SO HAPPY during the festival, that really touches my weakspot damn.
However, I think the game could be slightly shorter, I'd be pretty happy if it ended just before the volcano eruption (not in a plot sense, but a time sense [if it makes any sense]). My main complains revolve around some very small combat details, such as days being too short, the very shallow weapon type/weakness mechanic, and the grappling mechanic can be really stressfull at times, but none of it really matters when my screen is filled with awesome shiny numbers showing how much of a badass I am.
The first thing that catch your eyes in the game is its visuals; a very charming and "genshin impactish" cell shading effect, that makes you feel like you're playing a Ghibli movie, making everything look SO cute (I myself just bought it because I saw a clip of Sakuna holding 2 DOGS AT ONCE), and pleasant to look at.
The elephant in the room is this obvious and obscene contrast between a (fucking deep) farming game, and a side-scrolling action adventurer, and let me tell you at once, they don't merge quite well, at least for me, they always felt like their both separate universes, and obviously the action sections are much more fun, while the farming ones are frankly boring (slightly relaxing), and if you don't wanna fuck up your stats, you better not let an NPC handle it.
But despite all that, Sakuna is a game that OVERFLOWS with love and passion from its creators (damn, I even cried at the end), characters are all so adorable and well developed (except Yui), and they all really grow into a family with you, your little Mountain Pass is a character on itself, I felt SO HAPPY during the festival, that really touches my weakspot damn.
However, I think the game could be slightly shorter, I'd be pretty happy if it ended just before the volcano eruption (not in a plot sense, but a time sense [if it makes any sense]). My main complains revolve around some very small combat details, such as days being too short, the very shallow weapon type/weakness mechanic, and the grappling mechanic can be really stressfull at times, but none of it really matters when my screen is filled with awesome shiny numbers showing how much of a badass I am.