This is one of those games where a good majority of the "hardcore" HM fans will throw it away after playing the tutorial, and it's not entirely unwarranted. But for some reason this one just hooked me when I got it on Switch, though I ended up never finishing it on there. Got it on Steam sometime last year and decided now was the time to sit down and play it from start to finish. I think there's a variety of issues with the lack of direction and random difficulty spikes, but overall the game is fairly hands off with the freedom you have starting in early game which is pretty cool and unusual for farming sims. I think 100%'ing this game would add like a billion hours cause of the amount of random shit you can do (and need to do to unlock various things), but it might be a fun side project to revisit from time to time. While it may not be "Harvest Moon" at its core, it was still an enjoyable time.

Machina of the Planet Tree -Unity Unions- is definitely not the greatest game of all time, and while the somewhat obvious lack of variety in gameplay does make you wonder how the game came to fruition, I do think this is an enjoyable game if you're into PvE with a Diablo-esque style of shuffling weapons/equipment around constantly. It's actually fairly fun to experiment with different equipment builds to challenge yourself in the otherwise lacking content of the game. Roughly a 7/10 in my book.

--Pros--

+ Gameplay is pretty simple to understand and master quickly
+ Equipment building is pretty fun
+ Able to experiment with different play-styles based on said equipment building
+ Quick game to finish, easy to pick up and set down as needed
+ Minions are a fun mechanic that ties into the story somewhat
+ Main character is cute

--Cons--

- Game is not worth the $19 full price unfortunately, pick it up when it's on sale though!
- After you beat the main story, if you're interested in playing the game again for difficulty-related achievements, (1) harder difficulties don't supersede easier ones (meaning you need to play every level on every difficulty) and (2) inventory management becomes the biggest time investment which can be a real slog
- Story is extremely inconsequential and can be ignored/skipped entirely
- While I praise the equipment building, some traits/equipment are just vastly better than others at a core level, so it may get boring after a while
- Not easy to compare equipment, can't combine/craft amulets like you can staves.