I finally get to start a thread about this.
Sakuna: of Rice And Ruin is developed by doujin circle Edelweiss, so far best know for their shoot'em'up Astebreed, which was first published on PC and then found its way to various formats; before that I had them on my radar thanks to Ether Vapor, another shoot'em'up only available on PC through doujin sites.
Sakuna is Edelweiss' biggest title yet, and a departure from known territory: instead of shooting things, Sakuna is a platformer beat'em'up with a dash of Metroidvania and an extensive rice-growing mechanic that puts the likes of Harvest Moon to shame. If you are familiar with the Rune Factory series, Sakuna is kinda like those games, however with a deeper combat system, more complex farming mechanics focused on just one plant (rice), and not romancing parts.
Sakuna is a godess, but due to some antics, she finds herself along a small group of humans on the Isle Of Demons, tasked to pacify the place before beign able to return to her home in the Lofty Realms. The story is nothing peculiar, but does a good job in setting the stage; characters are likeable and interactions between them are believable. One thing about the translation: one of the humans is a foreign woman missionary; the Japanese voice indicates she's from England, while the English translation makes her sound from Germany. Of course I'm using real-world names for things the game calls in other ways (for example "Yanato", with an "n", instead of Yamato/Japan).
Sakuna is split into two parts: cultivating rice, and exploring the Isle Of Demons. Both portions are strictly intertwined and I was surprised how the game manages things.
Not only there's a day-night cycle, but there's a season circle, with changing lenght of daylight, sun position, and of course scenery. I'm mostly playing it on Switch, so it's not quite on par with PC and PS4 in terms of visual fidelity, but nevertheless Sakuna is a beautiful game to behold, with a lot of tiny details. It also runs very well, and doesn't scale resolution like many other titles. Three days form a season, and what you do during a day is more or less determined by the rice harvest.
During the last day of winter you need to till the rice field; on the first day of spring you plant the seeds, and up till autumn you tend the field by removing weeds and pests, manage fertilizer and water quantity and temperature. During autumn you harvest the rice and hang it to dry. On the first day of winter you remove the seed from the plant and then hull the rice: brown rice and white rice have different bonuses. And then the year restarts. All these portions have their own minigame, and for example the spacing between plants influences the quality of the rice. So does the type of fertilizer you spread, and of course how much you tilled the ground and removed pests. Most of these activities take a full day, and while you can ask one of your companions to take care of it, doing it yourself wields better results.
Rice quality also has the biggest influence on Sakuna's growth, indicated in typical videogame levels. Combat does yeld some experience, but the biggest, and often only, jump in experience is through rice farming. This is something of a problem within the game's structure however, as often you have to wait to complete a stage until the year's harvest and consequent levelling. Facing enemies above your level usually results in minimum damage no matter the equipment you have, and in many cases you'll be left replaying the same stages over and over simply to pass time and collect food and other items.
Oh yes, food: food is used to give some stat bonuses as well as special abilities like health regeneration, and ingredients like meat and vegetables spoil. You must process them to create dried meat and pickled vegetables, so that you can have something to eat during winter, when most of the days are spent preparing for the next year's harvest.
Combat is fast and fluid: two types of normal attacks plus a set of specials. You can launch enemies in the air and juggle them, and then smash them into the environment or other enemies for mode damage. Platforming is enhaced by the divine rainment, a sort-of grappling hook, which can also be used to expand juggling capabilities or quickly zip behind an enemy's back. There is no double jump (at least up till where I played), so mastering the rainment and even how to use the environment at your advantage is the key to both exploration and combat, and the result is a very pleasing system.
There are a few problems though. At times it's a bit unclear if you can ledge-grab a platform or you need the divine rainment to grab onto it, and there's no clear visual distinction of surfaces where the rainment can latch onto or not. At times the screen is a bit too busy for its own good, and enemies outside the screen can still damage you with projectiles, which are quite small...even bright-red bombs about the explode tend to get lost between enemies and terrain. The camera is a bit shy to show what's beneath you, and at times you need to drop down to proceed...only that "down" is full of spikes you could have avoided if you dropped a few pixels to the right.
These are minor problems though, the combat might not be the deepest ever but it's far more in-depth I would have imagined for a platformer/farming game. All stages have objectives (kill X number of enemies, collect this, and so on) that when completed will increase the exploration level, thus allowing Sakuna to explore more of the Isle Of Demons. Unfortunately most of these objectives can be cleared with one or two runs through a stage, so they won't really keep you busy while you wait for a new harvest.
Despite some pacing issues due to having to wait for the yearly harvest to some tackle stages, Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is a very fun game. It has a level of attention to detail on par with many more prestigious titles, and every aspect is well thought and contributes to the overall structure, without weighting down things too much.
Sakuna: of Rice And Ruin is developed by doujin circle Edelweiss, so far best know for their shoot'em'up Astebreed, which was first published on PC and then found its way to various formats; before that I had them on my radar thanks to Ether Vapor, another shoot'em'up only available on PC through doujin sites.
Sakuna is Edelweiss' biggest title yet, and a departure from known territory: instead of shooting things, Sakuna is a platformer beat'em'up with a dash of Metroidvania and an extensive rice-growing mechanic that puts the likes of Harvest Moon to shame. If you are familiar with the Rune Factory series, Sakuna is kinda like those games, however with a deeper combat system, more complex farming mechanics focused on just one plant (rice), and not romancing parts.
Sakuna is a godess, but due to some antics, she finds herself along a small group of humans on the Isle Of Demons, tasked to pacify the place before beign able to return to her home in the Lofty Realms. The story is nothing peculiar, but does a good job in setting the stage; characters are likeable and interactions between them are believable. One thing about the translation: one of the humans is a foreign woman missionary; the Japanese voice indicates she's from England, while the English translation makes her sound from Germany. Of course I'm using real-world names for things the game calls in other ways (for example "Yanato", with an "n", instead of Yamato/Japan).
Sakuna is split into two parts: cultivating rice, and exploring the Isle Of Demons. Both portions are strictly intertwined and I was surprised how the game manages things.
Not only there's a day-night cycle, but there's a season circle, with changing lenght of daylight, sun position, and of course scenery. I'm mostly playing it on Switch, so it's not quite on par with PC and PS4 in terms of visual fidelity, but nevertheless Sakuna is a beautiful game to behold, with a lot of tiny details. It also runs very well, and doesn't scale resolution like many other titles. Three days form a season, and what you do during a day is more or less determined by the rice harvest.
During the last day of winter you need to till the rice field; on the first day of spring you plant the seeds, and up till autumn you tend the field by removing weeds and pests, manage fertilizer and water quantity and temperature. During autumn you harvest the rice and hang it to dry. On the first day of winter you remove the seed from the plant and then hull the rice: brown rice and white rice have different bonuses. And then the year restarts. All these portions have their own minigame, and for example the spacing between plants influences the quality of the rice. So does the type of fertilizer you spread, and of course how much you tilled the ground and removed pests. Most of these activities take a full day, and while you can ask one of your companions to take care of it, doing it yourself wields better results.
Rice quality also has the biggest influence on Sakuna's growth, indicated in typical videogame levels. Combat does yeld some experience, but the biggest, and often only, jump in experience is through rice farming. This is something of a problem within the game's structure however, as often you have to wait to complete a stage until the year's harvest and consequent levelling. Facing enemies above your level usually results in minimum damage no matter the equipment you have, and in many cases you'll be left replaying the same stages over and over simply to pass time and collect food and other items.
Oh yes, food: food is used to give some stat bonuses as well as special abilities like health regeneration, and ingredients like meat and vegetables spoil. You must process them to create dried meat and pickled vegetables, so that you can have something to eat during winter, when most of the days are spent preparing for the next year's harvest.
Combat is fast and fluid: two types of normal attacks plus a set of specials. You can launch enemies in the air and juggle them, and then smash them into the environment or other enemies for mode damage. Platforming is enhaced by the divine rainment, a sort-of grappling hook, which can also be used to expand juggling capabilities or quickly zip behind an enemy's back. There is no double jump (at least up till where I played), so mastering the rainment and even how to use the environment at your advantage is the key to both exploration and combat, and the result is a very pleasing system.
There are a few problems though. At times it's a bit unclear if you can ledge-grab a platform or you need the divine rainment to grab onto it, and there's no clear visual distinction of surfaces where the rainment can latch onto or not. At times the screen is a bit too busy for its own good, and enemies outside the screen can still damage you with projectiles, which are quite small...even bright-red bombs about the explode tend to get lost between enemies and terrain. The camera is a bit shy to show what's beneath you, and at times you need to drop down to proceed...only that "down" is full of spikes you could have avoided if you dropped a few pixels to the right.
These are minor problems though, the combat might not be the deepest ever but it's far more in-depth I would have imagined for a platformer/farming game. All stages have objectives (kill X number of enemies, collect this, and so on) that when completed will increase the exploration level, thus allowing Sakuna to explore more of the Isle Of Demons. Unfortunately most of these objectives can be cleared with one or two runs through a stage, so they won't really keep you busy while you wait for a new harvest.
Despite some pacing issues due to having to wait for the yearly harvest to some tackle stages, Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is a very fun game. It has a level of attention to detail on par with many more prestigious titles, and every aspect is well thought and contributes to the overall structure, without weighting down things too much.
Comment