HARVESTELLA First Impressions

Something not skincare or makeup related for once!

This blog has always intended to be a place for me to talk about anything and everything I enjoy in my life. It just so happens that skincare takes up a lot of my time, and honestly it’s easier to blog about than video games sometimes because of the hassle of having to connect my Switch to the computer… transfer screenshots… etc… (it’s not that much of a hassle I’m just a lazy bum)

Ultimately too, I play through video games pretty slowly. I tend to start them, get really hyper fixated on them, then get distracted when another game comes out… LOL yes, I know I have a problem. It is fine.

Anyways I wanted to do a quick first impressions of Harvestella. I’m only in chapter 3 right now, and I’ve already completed 3A and I’m at least a bit of the way through with chapter 3B.

I came into Harvestella knowing pretty much nothing about the game. I just knew it was a Rune Factory-esque game with RPG, a plot line, and farming elements.

I saw the trailer for it at like E3 or something and excitedly waited for release date – but other than that, I didn’t actually seek out any information or any more in depth trailers about the game. I figured it had everything I usually love in other games, so I’d just play it when it came out and find out about it then.

I’ve only played one Rune Factory game, Rune Factory 4 for the Switch and was never particularly excited by the story line, although the gameplay was pretty addicting. But I binged it for like a week or two straight and then dropped it for something else.

Funnily enough I’d just started Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town right before getting Harvestella so it was kind of like trading a chocolate chip cookie for a fancier, inside out chocolate chip cookie when I did. (You know, the kind where the cookie is chocolate and the chips are white and it’s made out of like fancy expensive chocolate? LOL)

Anyways, be wary of spoilers if you haven’t played the game yet (there aren’t many butttt) in this review!

Story, Worldbuilding, and Characters

The story line immediately caught my eye, especially when the second character you can become partners with shows up. I honestly thought the “from the future” plotline with Aria was lowkey a joke but then I kept playing and she’s ACTUALLY from the future, and because of that, her character and what she says is SO interesting to me because I really want to know what the heck happened in the future, and why her armor is that of an Omen and how that relates to the current timeline, etc… basically, I was pretty much instantly hooked.

The story starts off slow – after all, your character has amnesia, so the entire world’s setting and functions are completely unknown. As you progress through the game, parts of the world are slowly revealed to you – although not entirely. Of course, as you progress as well more game functions also become available – like quick teleporting through the big green stones scattered around dungeons and your farm (they have a name I just cannot for the life of me remember it right now). Time is also an extremely important function in this game – midnight is when the day ends and you “pass out” and have to pay a medical fee when you awaken at the doctor’s office, similar to how it is in other harvesting games.

Because the story was like peeling an onion for me, I was really hooked and wanted to know more about everything that was going on. There were definitely quite a few cliches that I was able to immediately guess, but the ultimate “truth” behind my guesses weren’t exactly what I imagined at first – at least until more information was revealed through different books and technology that are scattered in the dungeons. I’m so curious as to what the overall plot of the game is, because all the points right now are simply loosely related but they haven’t been woven entirely together yet from where I’m at in the game’s story.

Also, how is it that there are so many amnesiacs in this game? LOL.

Furthermore, the areas are so gorgeous in this game. My favorite city hands down so far would be the Spring city, Nemea, because it’s got never-ending cherry blossoms there. They glow under the sunlight and even in the dark, and in general, the city is just this gorgeous white stone-faced city with pink accents… I mean, it’s literally my favorite color scheme, nothing will compare.

Some of the shots from the very beginning of the game were super gorgeous – I screenshotted so many pictures and they were all so pretty and hard to choose from! My favorite shots were of Nemea and the Winter city who’s name escapes me right now. The panning from the cathedral to the snow was so pretty to me.

Every time you enter a new area too you get a fun little overview of the area and you can get some really nice pictures too. Overall, I think the environment and the world building is really great, and the entire world slowly gets revealed to you.

Character-wise, there’s an interesting cast of characters you can “romance” and there’s a lot of humor that feels not entirely juvenile, but I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly dark or mature storyline either. That being said, my friend who is further in the game says the story takes a pretty big twist later on, so I’m SUPER curious as to what happens LOL! However there’s a lot of woven threads gathered together, and I’m excited to see how they’ll all play out. It’s honestly the mystery and the fact that someone knows what happens in the future, and the mix of futuristic and rustic that’s really interesting to me and keeping me hooked on the game.

I’ve only met so many characters so far who I can party up with, but I’ve liked all of them so far. I actually didn’t like Aria much at first because I felt like she was kind of annoying LOL but she slowly began to grow on me as the story went on. I mean realistically speaking, I understand her hesitation in interacting with people from the past, especially if it might mean her family might not exist in the future – let alone her. The fact that Aria is familiar with the future, that there are futuristic structures in the dungeons of these games, and that for all we know we are literally altering the very future Aria knows is just crazy interesting to me and really compels me to play further to find out the ultimate truth of the game.

As for Asyl, I thought he was adorable but also like enough bro we get it about the dragon girl LOL.

Overall I’d say story wise, so far, it’s really compelling and one of the main reasons why I keep playing.

Mechanics and Gameplay

Harvestella is a mix of both RPG as well as a harvest/farming sim.

The farming aspect of the game is much simpler compared to other games. There’s no refilling the watering can and the crops grow super fast. I’m still super poor and I can’t figure out how everyone else isn’t as poor as I am considering I’m now in Summer LOL but yeah I’m still poor.

Regardless the game is fun and the money you’re spending is mostly on seeds to grow crops anyways. Gear upgrades aren’t super expensive so far, plus you have to locate the materials anyways so sometimes that puts a damper on how fast you can upgrade. However, farm upgrades get pretty pricey, and even with the cooking quests and doing side quests I find myself lacking money pretty often.

There is also a crafting aspect in the game – you can cook food, which takes time, or craft useful items like machines to convert crops into various foodstuffs but also craft items which will assist in dungeons like bombs and repair kits. Crafting uses up time as does cooking.

Time is another big gameplay factor in this game. Unlike other harvest games where the cutoff time is usually around 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning, Harvestella’s cutoff time is at midnight. The later you go to sleep, the later you wake up, too. So in a sense your total “time” for your day is pretty much maxed out to a certain point if you think about it. If you go to bed earlier, the earliest you can wake up is 6 a.m. in the morning. Essentially, you have to balance your crops, any crafting and cooking, continuing the main story, and then maintaining time if you want to head into the dungeons. The floors of each dungeon have a waypoint marker so you can teleport to it, but if you don’t reach it before midnight or something then there’s really nothing you can do about it.

Furthermore, walking from destination to destination on the world map also uses up time. The world map is a large birds eye overview of the map which focuses around your character. You can walk across it to the places you need to go, but walking will cause time to move forward which can take more time out. Luckily after you’ve crossed the dungeons between cities you can just walk through them rather than having to enter them every time and teleport to the other side.

I’d say you don’t have to pay attention to time THAT seriously, but it is helpful to ration your time especially if you’re going to go into the main dungeons in each story chapter. Dungeon farming, at least in my experience, usually takes more than one in-game day, especially if you’re thoroughly trying to get all the chests and exploring all the areas. At least in the 3A Heaven’s Egg dungeon, you don’t have much of a choice in getting or avoiding the chests as they contain key items to proceed onto the next area, so you have to search for them.

You can also fish in game which is fun, although it’s definitely not super lucrative in comparison to other things like the side quests – but I enjoy it a lot.

Final Thoughts

The game just really covers a lot of things I like in a game, so it’s really no surprise that I like it so much. It has an interesting mystery for me to solve, a beautiful world to run around in, gorgeous artwork, and crafting and farming. And of course, you can technically romance someone although there is no marriage in game. Instead you can have a “partner” / form a Partnership and that person will move into your home so honestly it’s basically getting married lmao.

Overall, I’m super enjoying Harvestella and would definitely recommend it to others. In fact, I did recommend it to a bunch of other friends and now all of them have it and we’ve all been playing kind of along together in separate places haha!

Anyways, this is a little bit of a deviation from my usual posting, but if you’re reading this, thank you and hope you have a wonderful holiday break!