Farmagia Review (Switch)
Summary: Farmagia is an action adventure RPG where you reap what you sow…literally! Plant and grow creatures to accompany you on your quest to save the Underworld from a dishonorable monarch and his battalion of monsters. Farmagia’s unique approach to the genre may raise some eyebrows, but successfully creates a fun time with its interweaving gameplay components. Not only does the game’s anime style, challenging quests, and interesting story effortlessly garner attention, but the quality and quantity Farmagia is able to cultivate succeeds in making it a must play hit.
4
Hell's Half Acre
Harvest up monsters and unleash them out in the wild in this epic tale with a captivating twist! Farmagia is an action adventure RPG developed by Marvelous, published by Marvelous and XSEED Games, and released for PC, PS5, and Switch on November 1st of 2024. Farmagia blends the RPG elements of leveling up and fending against large chimeric creatures with farming sim mechanics like tending to soil and watering seeds. This collaboration between Marvelous (developers of STORY OF SEASONS, Fate/Extella, and Rune Factory) and Hiro Mashima (writer and illustrator of Fairy Tale) has created a game with a unique world with notable gameplay logistics and design. Join in the fight against the forces of evil and cultivate to combat a legion trying to dominate this fantasy land rich of crazy critters!
Farmagia takes place in the Underworld area known as Felicidad which is split up into five continents. Each continent is ruled by a general that governs the denizens’ lives and challenges the dangerous monsters that roam the lands. The deplorable death of the Magus, the leader of all the generals, has led one of the generals to rise up and take the throne. As the new Magus, Glaza rules with an iron fist and wants all of the Underworld to bend to his will. Farmagias (people who can sync with monsters and use them to fight) are rebelling to confront Gaza’s menacing minions. An amateur Farmagia named Ten is barely able to defend his town with the help of others and goes on a journey to protect his world from the nefarious actions of the evil emperor.
The story follows anime tropes and some archetypes can get tiresome at times, but overall, the story and everything in between that pads it out are engaging and even thought-provoking at times. The beautiful world and colorful settings forge a perfect backdrop for this tale to be told. The voice acting is top notch which gives each well written lively personality illumination and attention. Personally, I find it hard to cherish and admire the multitude of characters in anime influenced games, but due to the dramatic story and passionate character beats, Farmagia was able to keep its characters’ motivations, purposes, and endeavors engrossing all the way through. Even though the story may seem familiar and contrived at times, the novel overarching narrative, given the subject of the gameplay, conjures a charming experience that’s fun to play through and witness.
The gameplay is split into two major parts that both feed into each other: farming and combat. Defeating enemies will drop seeds and going back to your farm and plowing the field, planting the seeds, and watering them will give you a Battle Buddy. Battle Buddies are monsters, like fast foxes or deviant dragons, that are your allies and through syncing with them, you can do a number of things out on the battlefield. Farming starts out pretty basic at first, but becomes quite intense with some buddies taking longer to grow and others taking up more space. Tending to your farm by pulling weeds or increasing the space of your land is essential to giving you the best chance of victory in the long run. Other nuances like training your little allies to become stronger and motivating them with treats or going to the shop to craft or buy items that can speed up the process of growing a monster back at the farm can really change the tide of battle. The game does a good job of keeping you active and being attentive to best utilize these different components that rewards you with a smoother time with combat.
Controlling your character and buddies is simple, but one careless mistake can cost you a lot and change the direction in which you strategize. You play as the main character Ten, but can switch to others before disbanding out into a Maze, or playing area, with each one having their own passive ability. You can assign a buddy and the amount of that buddy to a face button. Pressing that button will make them attack whatever you are locked on to whether it be a monster or a tree branch. Holding that button down will make them attack continuously. When a buddy gets hurt, their Farmagia gets hurt, so it is important to actually watch the enemies attacks and be careful while on the offense. If a buddy gets KO’d, you can run over to it to revive it. Guarding calls all of your buddies to you for a fast get away and perfect guarding recovers HP and saps nearby enemies’ KO Gauge.
Depleting an enemies’ KO Gauge will stagger it, making it susceptible to more damage. This is where you want to unleash your bigger attacks like Unite Blitz, where one group of your buddies do a powerful attack all together, Legion Attack, where all of your buddies attack all at once to inflict massive damage, or Fusion, where all of your buddies fuse together to form a new giant buddy that reigns down an ultimate strike. All offensive maneuvers run on meters that slowly build over time or can build up faster by other means like attacking enemies in a regular fashion and succession. Each type of buddy has unique abilities that do different types of damage. There are some that focus on brute force and others that hang back and snipe from a distance. There is a feature where you can save different loadouts for quick changes before heading out into a Maze and these presets are very useful to accelerate the tedium of equipping all of the different commodities that you can assign to yourself.
Farmagia’s quirky game design is oddly satisfying and addictively fun. The environments in which you play in are straight forward and aren’t incredibly expansive, but the crux of the game befittingly generates fun through great participation and rewarding outcomes. Farmagia’s encompassing vibe reminded me of a mix between Dark Cloud and Phantasy Star, especially out on the battlefield. After defeating the enemies in an area, you can choose what next area you will go to, a Fairy Den or Item Vine. Going to Fairy Dens nets you Fairy Skills, like increasing critical rate, damage, or percent a gauge will fill, and going in an Item Vine will give you rare crafting materials to help train your Battle Buddies. Other subtle integrants such as the time limit in a Maze, what time of day it is determining what monsters are present, and creating combos to increase gauge refill speed in your favor, invent an entertaining gaming space where being astute creates a nice balance in difficulty and harmonization with the game that is hard to find in other titles in the same genre.
Graphically, Farmagia looks really good and has some incredible monster designs. Characters also look straight out of an anime and this specific style accompanies the gameplay thoroughly. The motion comic scenes are done nicely and evoke a cool style that can only be expressed by it. I did experience a decent amount of slow down while playing this on the Switch in both docked and handheld modes, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Jagged edges exist, but I experienced no other technical issues. The music is astonishingly well done with some epic battle rocking music and softer orchestral moments with loud trumpets that serve as tension builders. Voice acting is top tier, but can get annoying at times if you don’t like that typical anime manner of talking where everything is over exaggerated. Some other tropes have also carried over like the odd or inappropriate overly flirtatious behavior seen in some anime, which while par for the course, can be vexing at times where it is unnatural.
Final Thoughts?
Farmagia’s unconventional gameplay mechanics are a hit while not being excessive or carrying the entire game on these procedures. The mix of gameplay elements is original, congenial for fans of the genre, and captivating for those who are curious. While the makeup of the environments and actually running around in this world may seem somewhat barebones and dry, the complexities and layers implemented in Farmagia make strategizing and actually participating in the game’s functions compelling and gratifying. The anime style may be overdone, but experts in this field make this element bearable for the most part. Music that dominates, incredible voice acting, conceptually cool monsters, and substantial graphics and character designs make a game that’s hard to miss. Farmagia harvests up the qualities that make a game great and triumphantly forms it in a way that flourishes into something special.
About the Author
Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.
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