Review: Fields of Mistria

Genre / Tags: Early Access, RPG, Farming Sim, Dating Sim, Indie, Simulation
Developer/Publisher: NPC Studio/NPC Studio
URL: Fields of Mistria on Steam

I’ll just be outright honest here. I love me a good cozy farming game. I’ve been hooked since I played Harvest Moon 64 at a friend’s house when I was a kid. I might be showing my age a bit, but they are just one of those genre’s that you can just chill out and lose a whole week into without even realizing it. Fields of Mistria is EASILY a game you could lose all sense of time with and just play all day. I’m so happy I decided to finally pick it up during the Winter Sale this year.

Fields of Mistria follows closely in toe with games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon where there’s a starting “formula” of you get given a rundown farm in some way. Your first few days of said game is meeting the townsfolk and starting to grow some crops / forage around the town to make some money. This game takes things a few steps further that other games in the same genre don’t, which is what makes the game unique to me.

(Image Credit: Fields of Mistria)

One of the first ways that Fields of Mistria is different from other Farming Sim games you find out right away is that you can jump over obstacles. You can even swim around in the water too. This gives a lot of freedom to the game. Now you don’t “have” to clear out a lot of your farm right away to be able to move around, because now you can just jump over them.

(Image Credit: Fields of Mistria)

Something else you find out like day 2, is that magic is tied to every single action that you do. Every rock or stick you break, farming, fishing, mining, etc. All of these tasks have a chance to give you a little skill point essentially to be able to utilize to make your various skills better. There’s a decent sized skill tree for nearly every little aspect of the game.

Combat is another thing that I think really only gets utilized in the mines that you eventually unlock. But Fields of Mistria does have a decent combat system unlike other similar Farming Sim games. Where combat exists, but it’s usually not done super great like in Coral Island where mobs are kind of buggy and what-not. Combat doesn’t feel like an afterthought in Fields of Mistria. There’s a whole skill tree devoted to the combat skill giving you some unique abilities or making you stronger. Combat is still mostly just hack, slash, and jumping but it doesn’t feel as clunky and most mobs have unique attack patterns to them.

(Image Credit: Fields of Mistria)

One of the last unique things that I actually found neat was Fields of Mistria makes conversations somewhat different. Say there’s a group of people chatting with one another. If you walk up to one of them you see a new dialog box that’s like multiple chatbubbles. Here you join into the conversation and chat with all of the people at once instead of individually. It’s really immersive compared to games where you just walk up and have that moment with that person.

To me these types of conversations feel like, “Oh I have a set dialog for this moment that I have to talk about because the player has engaged with me”, vs what Fields of Mistria does. You see these group conversations a lot at the tavern where there’s usually a lot of people having a good time at the tables. Especially on a Friday Night where the whole town hangs out there.

I’m not super far into Fields of Mistria yet. Its a couple days away from the summer season but i’ve easily already got 10+ hrs into the game. There is much more content to go even for an early access game. I cannot wait to delve further in but for now easily have to give the game a 9.1/10. There’s not a lot really I can think of that i’d improve upon with the game. It’s a pretty solid cozy farming sim game so far.

Check out the latest update trailer below from Fields of Mistria! Also check them out on Steam!