Farmagia | Switch Review

Where to even begin with a game like Farmagia? Developed and published by Marvelous, who farming game enthusiasts might know as the force behind many Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, and Story of Seasons titles, Farmagia is an action RPG with farming elements, relationship building, and combat pet rearing. If that sounds like Rune Factory, it’s not. It’s…complicated.

The story really emphasizes that statement. You play as Ten and a group of friends who are Farmagia, people who are capable of raising and commanding monsters known as battle buddies in defense of the town. One day, the ruler of the land is assassinated, and his top advisor takes over. He claims he wants to establish a meritocracy, but the dead ruler’s top warrior says “no way” starts a resistance movement, and is immediately branded a traitor. This same warrior comes to Ten’s quiet town and asks for their help. Thus, based purely on her word and nothing else, Ten and his friends join the rebellion against some guy they’ve never met and have no reason to disbelieve when he says he just wants everyone to get along. But if they don’t join the rebellion, there wouldn’t be a story, so everyone just goes with it.

See? Complicated.

Not Your Average Homestead

The gameplay loop basically has you going to the farm, using up your stamina by tilling the soil, planting seeds, and watering them. This is how you get new monsters, because obviously they don’t grow on trees, right? You can also grow research monsters, which give you points you can use to upgrade both your farm and farming abilities, as well as unlock new monsters. Once your stamina is used up, you can only get it back by going through a dungeon.

The dungeons are decidedly bare-bones. You’ll go through usually 2-4 relatively small battle arenas, each one with various enemy monsters that spawn in and must be defeated. After clearing them all out, you can pick up items or gain new abilities via fairies, then in true roguelike style, you can choose the reward for the next battle arena. This is really just items or more fairy abilities with no additional depth. Rinse and repeat until you get to the boss room and bam, dungeon over. Every dungeon has the same small rooms, differently decorated based on which island you’re attacking, and once you’ve gone through the very first dungeon, you can be assured that literally all of them are like that.

The combat itself is sort of a blend of Pikmin, Pokemon, and Sekiro. Don’t worry, that last one makes sense in context. Before entering a dungeon, you assign a certain monster type to each button, stock up a certain number (more = more damage) and with the press of a button, send three at a time to rush at the enemy and attack. When enemies attack you, a quick tap of the guard button brings your buddies to safety, and if you time a perfect parry (see? Sekiro) you can damage the enemy’s stamina gauge and eventually stun them and unleash a blitz attack. The enemy monsters eventually get super attacks that can’t be blocked, but you also unlock unite counters, so it’s just a different parry type.

If this sounds like it’s repetitive, don’t worry, it is. Parrying attacks is about all you do in combat, and it’s not exactly challenging. Enemies will flash a spark of light whenever they attack, so you can easily time your parries. Then you just throw your monsters back at the enemy and stand around until the next time you have to parry or until the enemy dies, whichever comes first. The game even discourages you simply moving to avoid attacks, since your monsters aren’t smart enough to avoid them unless you recall them with your guard.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

Farmagia is a weird beast. It feels, simultaneously, like a well-meaning indie game and a high-end studio RPG. Fans of the manga and anime Fairy Tail will note some familiar character designs immediately upon starting the game. That’s because Hiro Mashima, the creator of Fairy Tail, did the character designs. The dialogue is also fully voiced, which is surprising, and it’s actually pretty well done, in both English and Japanese. However, the cutscenes are relegated to mostly static images with minor lip flaps and slight expression changes. It feels like the entire budget went to the voice acting and presentation.

This is also evident in how the game plays. Rather than a town to explore, you have menus. The only 3D environment outside the dungeons is your farm, which is cramped until you upgrade it a couple times. There’s a number of different monsters you can harvest, but only battle buddies specifically can be used for combat. Every other much, much cooler monster is only for research, which provides you points to unlock and strengthen abilities. So rather than the joy of raising and unlocking a harpy, a golem, or a dragon as a battle buddy, they just give you research points and you promptly forget about them.

Less Than It Could Have Been

It’s ultimately a game that starts out strong and quickly becomes disappointing because it’s obvious so much more could have been done. Bigger, cooler, usable monsters. There could have been a world to explore where you use your buddies to clear obstacles or unlock new areas. Combat could have been about managing your resources and timing your attacks rather than just standing around waiting for the enemy to make their move. Despite the lack of emphasis on farming, it’s hard not to compare this to the Rune Factory series, which not only had handcrafted dungeons, but you could befriend nearly every monster in the game, including bosses.

To top it off, this is a game currently available for $50 USD. It’s got quite a lot of hours of content if it is, in fact, your cup of tea, but other than the voice acting, it doesn’t feel like it’s giving you your money’s worth. There’s so much more that this game could have been beyond the really great music and voice acting. 

To hear me talk more about Farmagia, be sure to listen to the November 29, 2024 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast.

This review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy of Farmagia provided by ONE PR Studio for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam.