Yep, my birthday is this week! Not doing anything too special this time, as I felt that a recent trip to Ikea was more than spendy enough, haha. Though I will be happy to get some chocolate cake!
That aside, what have I been up to? I'll tell you since you asked so nicely. I've been playing Fields of Mistria! Now that I think about it, I got this game as a birthday gift last year! Let's get into it.
If you haven't heard of it, Fields of Mistria is a 2D Farming Sim. What makes it stand out, in my opinion, is the level of polish, and the quality and consistency of the art. It just recently had it's 1.0 release (the reason I was playing). I'd rather not get into comparing it to Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, though if you've played either, you'd have no trouble with any of the mechanics in Fields of Mistria.
Ill advised as it was, I somehow sunk almost 50 hours into this game this past week. Jeez, that's so much. Basically all of my free time, so, it makes sense. Speedrunning through the first year, trying to progress both main quests as much as I could... I've lost a lot of steam now that I know what the final part of one of the quests requires. Not that it's bad; I was much more prepared to spend a ton of my money or grind for rare materials or whatnot. Since I've gone through almost all of the game's story in this way, I think I would be happy to do a more chilled out longplay (not any time soon) where I know a bit more about the game (like how the farm animal colors actually work, or where to fish up legendary fish, etc.). My preferred "play new games without any guides or wikis except in extreme circumstances" method was great for Fields of Mistria; not much in-game is obfuscated or all that mysterious.
As for the content of the game itself, I find the game progression to be dangerously satisfying. The mines (metals) allow you to expand your farmlands to a great extent, even if you forgo the automation options eventually provided to you. Fishing has no minigame tied to it, though is well balanced by having a relatively high energy cost and only-decent payout for the fish. Ranching is easy, adding in many new colors with rarity tiers to breed for. On my farm, I set out to fill out all three colors of all five tiers for a few of the raisable animals. I got to tier 4, though only one of the 3 colors (silver, seemingly a very common outcome, anecdotally). The mines are tied to the second main quest involving a statue on your farm. By progressing this, you will also get magic spells for (my) infrequent use. The crafting, cooking, and smithing professions are well done, though I have cared much less for the decoration-focused crafting. And finally, the townspeople.
Fields of Mistria has great character art with seasonal and circumstantial outfits, not to mention the player customization. The writing is quite good for most of them, some feeling more one-note than others, with the romancable characters being the most detailed. My personal favorite... I won't tell you, haha. Honestly, I'm not big into this aspect (it's like tradition, or something) of farming sims. Do they all need to be extremely easy dating sims, too? Anyway, it's exactly what you'd expect, just with the aforementioned stylish art.
In all, I like it. I do need to take a break from it. I hope more fun mechanics get added in the future! And thank you for reading!