Farmagia
Developer: Marvelous
Publishers: Marvelous, XSEED Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Switch, PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $59.99 USD – Available Here $89.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Anyone familiar with Marvelous has likely played either their Story of Seasons or Rune Factory titles through the years so when the company announced that they were working on a new type of farming game that would be a combination of an action RPG with farming on the side, it sounded like a very interesting evolution for the company. Combine this with the fact that they were working with Hiro Mashima, the creator of Fairy Tail and Edens Zero, to design the characters and monsters and this unique blend seems like it has all the potential to take off as something truly special. However, sometimes too many elements can water things down, so does Farmagia manage to hold itself together with all these components combined?
Story
Set in a fantasy land simply called the Underworld, human-looking people simply called Denizens have grown to live with monsters as their allies and even grow them on farms since peace has long ruled the land thanks to its magnanimous ruler Magnus and his generals, the Oracion Seis. This all changes however when Magus suddenly dies, leaving a power vacuum that the Oracion Seis member Glaza immediately takes hold of. Seizing the throne, Glaza puts on a show of continuing to keep peace in the land but begins a tyrannical rule that throws the lands into chaos. With Glaza seeking to take over the world, another member of the Oracion Seis flees and organizes a resistance.
One of the key members of this resistance turns out to be Ten, a young but highly skilled Farmagia (who is someone capable of raising monsters at a farm and commanding them), who soon finds himself in the middle of the elite band of the resistance. Alongside his friends that soon join him and the odd little mascot fairy Lookie-Loo, it will be up to Ten, his monsters, and a very familiar looking leader to try to bring peace back to the world.
Farmagia tells a pretty straightforward shonen style storyline across its numerous chapters as Ten and his allies continue to seek out new allies while trying to liberate the lands along the way. This means that there really aren’t too many twists to be had here and the patented Hiro Mashima’s power-of-friendship style of victory is a very present factor throughout the journey but it never really feels tacky. This is likely thanks to the colorful nature of the game as well as just how well developed most of the cast ends up being. Sure, some get a bit less development than others, and even then it does take a bit for many of them to appear to be more than their stereotypical tropes, but a lot of characters are given specific focus during certain chapters which does wonders for world-building and character development.
As far as romance goes, players will be disappointed to hear that unlike a usual Marvelous game with farming elements, there is no real marriage or romance here but there is an affection system. Along Ten’s journey he will form pacts with the various elemental spirits that control nature itself and by giving them gifts that they like as well as completing their trials their affection level will rise. Raising an elemental girl’s affection not only benefits the player with various bonuses for fusion attacks but also unlocks lovely lengthy interactions with Ten and the spirits that border on romance. In fact, some of the best parts of the game tend to be when interacting with the various elementals though the main characters traveling alongside Ten are pretty solid as well, especially Arche. These various character interactions help elevate a straightforward shonen story a bit above itself, especially with Hiro Mashima’s stylings making it feel natural. That being said, those unfamiliar with his work may be a bit less enthused by certain tropes that longtime fans of his works are familiar with, even if he didn’t play a major role in writing the story in Farmagia.
Gameplay
While the story may feel like it’s straight out of a shonen anime, Farmagia‘s various gameplay elements show the full effect of taking a blender to many popular elements and hoping it comes together in the end. While Farmagia may seem like a farming game at first glance, the farm itself is merely a means to an end when it comes to the core aspect of the game, dungeon exploration with a large number of “battle buddies” at your side with small roguelite elements all to take down a boss at the end of each dungeon using simple button presses to command your buddies to attack at the player’s behest.
As such, Farmagia is mostly part visual novel and part dungeon exploration with light sprinklings of farming, roguelite temporary buffs when delving into a dungeon, and even some light relationship building all mixed together and for the most part things work out fairly well, though it is easy to see where some elements haven’t been given quite as much depth as they should as Farmagia spreads itself a bit too thin and basic in regards to combat, monster training, and even the farming itself. The in-game towns or facilities that players interact with are all simply done through a menu screen as well.
When on the farm, players must use their limited FP (Farmagia Points or stamina) to till the fields, sow monster seeds, and water them while also occasionally clearing away weeds or debris that have sprung up on the field. Oddly enough, unlike a usual farming game, stamina does not regenerate when a day passes. Instead, players must venture into a dungeon in order to restore their FP to full and continue working on their farm. As for the various monsters that players can plant, they are broken into three different categories and although there are over two hundred types of monsters to plant, the actual variety is quite limited. Part of this is due to simply being recolors as well as the aforementioned categories.
The ones players will see and utilize the most are battle buddies but there are not nearly as many of them as players would hope for. The rest of the monsters that players can plant and harvest largely fall into Research Buddies that reward player’s with a research point and money when harvested. Research points are then used to unlock various skills such as having more FP, a bigger farm, extra abilities for battle buddies, etc. though players can only obtain three points from each species of Research Buddy. When players have harvested three of one type, that will unlock that monster to be used as a “Unite Blitz” style monster that allows your battle buddies to transform into a larger one for a powerful attack before reverting back to their small horde. This means that while players can harvest plenty of large dragons or even harpies, they won’t actually be able to lead forty of them into battle at a time, only the small battle buddies.
Then there’s the third group, Agri-Buddies that serve to help the player on the farm, taking care of small tasks and saving them from having to spend FP. There are various elements like using fertilizer to speed up or increase the yield of a monster but it’s never necessary, in fact players will often spend less time on the actual farm than even using the ranch or taking on quests from either the job board or one of their Elemental friends.The ranch is where players will train battle buddy stats at the cost of “jellies” of certain quality depending on their level. Specific battle buddies will have favored stats that grow better than others and players will need to feed them treats after training to keep their morale high and that’s about it.
Dungeons are where players will spend most of their time, despite the average length of most dungeons actually being fairly short. These roguelite mazes allow players to bring a set amount of Battle Buddies across four types into battle and enemies will immediately spawn when players enter the arena. Actually fighting enemies is done simply by pressing the face button for the Battle Buddy players want to send out. Some enemies are weak to certain types and can take additional damage from them but, since the game’s combat is very simplistic and a tad too easy, even on Hard, it is easier to often just send everything otu at once. Larger enemies have “break” gauges that can send them into a stunned state where a Unite Blitz can send them into a downed state that allows for a Legion Attack, having every buddy assault them at once for massive damage.
This break gauge can also be depleted by performing perfect guards as guarding will draw all battle buddies to the player and shield them from harm and a perfect one will not only reduce an enemy’s break gauge but also boost the player’s Blitz cooldown and Fusion gauge. Finally, players can trigger a massive Fusion that will summon an extra large monster into the field to perform a flashy attack to deal plenty of damage to everything around the user, though there is unfortunately no way to skip this little cinematic for how often the gauge can be refilled and utilized. It is worth noting that should a battle buddy get knocked out in combat, players can simply move towards them to revive them to get them back into the fight.
While traveling between rooms players can select from paths that will either reward them with item boxes or fruit trees that contain Fairies. These fairies will provide various boosts to either the Farmagia players are controlling or their buddies as a whole. The more of a certain color of Fairy players have, the more skills they can unlock for that run though the amount players can carry at a time is limited, having to either replace or discard an entire tree if needed. This gives the dungeons a bit of extra variety even if the combat itself rarely feels too challenging. That being said, there is something very gratifying about picking certain fairy buffs and having upwards of sixty buddies following around at a time and, since players can customize their amount and expand their ranch size through skills, it is entirely possible, albeit a bit unwise, to roll with an entire mob of the player’s favorite monster alone and using them to squash their enemies.
Audio & Visuals
Anyone familiar with anime or manga will likely recognize that Farmagia has a rather impressive name handling the design work for the game’s characters and monster designs. As mentioned earlier, Hiro Mashima has lent his talents to the game and provided plenty of memorable looking character designs that all have that familiar feeling to them. In fact it’s quite fun to see new characters introduced and catch just how similar they are to a certain Fairy Tale or Edens Zero character. That being said, the artwork in the game is absolutely stellar and very colorful and the monster designs are similarly handled well, even in their 3D forms. The characters unfortunately don’t happen to look quite the best in 3D and the dungeons themselves, while colorful, lack any type of notable charm or element that will make them memorable. In fact, dungeons start to feel quite repetitive very quickly thanks to this.
As far as voice work goes, Marvelous has made sure to provide quite the extensive English dub for the game with nearly every story interaction and relationship building conversation being voiced. The voice actors themselves handle their roles well, fitting the theme of the game’s shonen stylings. As for the soundtrack, the game features a stellar opening song as well as a very solid collection of background music both during town menus and during combat in the dungeons.
Overall
Farmagia is a bright and colorful game and tells a fairly straightforward but enjoyable story of friendship overcoming adversity in tried and true fashion. With the great artwork and designs of Hiro Mashima behind it, the game’s artwork is gorgeous and accompanying voice work and music are also stellar, though the gameplay itself always just feels a bit too shallow to leave a lasting impact. Between the limited farming, ease of combat where it’s better to let chaos reign as opposed to strategize in most cases, and the not-quite-there affection system that doesn’t scratch the romance itch many would have in a game such as this, especially with how wonderful some of the elemental spirits are, and Farmagia manages to provide some wonderful presentation to cover its middling mechanics.
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