We’ve seen a lot of new half-farming sim, half-something-else games in recent years. Rune Factory is one of the original examples, and a few years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin a game that was half farming sim and half side-scrolling beat ‘em up. Farmagia, on the other hand, is a real-time action game where monster tamers, known as Farmagia can control monsters in battle.

This game wears a lot of hats; alongside the combat and farming sections, the game also has a sprawling visual novel style story that plays out in between battles. Farmagia leans heavily into a fantasy anime aesthetic and narrative, and as is common with these sorts of tropey romps, your mileage may vary. It is clear, though, that Farmagia has a very clear vision and identity.

Farmagia is set in a world made up of five distinct islands, governed by a ruler who very recently passed away. With his death, a man named Glaza takes over his position and uses his new power to begin an oppressive regime. Protagonist, Ten and his allies form part of a resistance group working to push back against Glaza and bring peace back to the islands before it is too late. The story also explains that being a Farmagia is something quite special and most of the heavy hitters in the resistance have these abilities. So Ten sets out with his monsters in an attempt to overthrow Glaza with the help of his friends and new allies met along the way.

The 2D character art is very detailed and easily locks down Farmagia’s style. The character artwork was done by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima, and while none of the character designs are especially mindblowing, they all fit the aesthetic the game is going for. Another important contribution to the narrative is the voice acting; nearly every main story scene plays out with fully voiced characters, which is often pretty rare in indie games. The performances are very impressive too, giving additional life to the characters that would definitely be lacking without them. Occasionally the actors are given clunky lines of dialogue to read, but even with occasional moments like this, the vocal work is very consistent throughout.

“The farm feels disconnected from the rest of the game…”

While there is some farming to be done in Farmagia, it quite obviously is not the main focus of the game. Unlike a more classic Rune Factory experience where the farming and RPG parts of the game are almost a 50/50 split, I would more liken Farmagia to Harvestella, a game where farming is not a main component or even central focus of the experience. Ten grows monsters on this farm, instead of food, and as you grow monsters they can then be added to the team that you will be taking out into the battle sections. It is a nice loop in theory, with good farming rewarding players with higher-quality monsters for battles, but the farming itself is underbaked and doesn’t add much at all.

The farm feels disconnected from the rest of the game, largely because areas are navigated through a menu instead of a physical town that can be traversed by the player. Visits to the farm are short too, as it doesn’t take long to finish planting and watering for the day, so each in-game day sees you spending little more than a minute at the plot. While it is entertaining to see just how the monsters grow as plants, the actual farming is so incongruent with the main meat of the game that it becomes more of an inconvenience than a novelty.

The meat of the gameplay takes part in the mazes, the action RPG sections. These are essentially linear areas where you lead your monsters through the maze, fighting enemies as you come across them and then choosing which room to head to next. It utilises a system that can be found in many roguelikes where players choose one of two or three rooms based on what upgrade they want to come across next. In Farmagia, the choice is generally between an ability upgrade or item drops. Each of Ten’s active monsters will be on screen as he runs about; that’s up to 40, and then they are controlled in type groups assigned to the face buttons. So you can have a maximum of four types of monsters, and then ten of each.

Because there are so many moving parts on screen, the framerate does noticeably dip in these sections and because a lot of the combat relies on performing perfect parries, it causes problems. It can be hard to understand what is happening during combat as well; each group of monsters in your party can be sent off to fight a monster on the field, but they don’t know how to block on their own, the player has to do it for them. With so much happening on screen, so many enemies and so many of your own monsters, it can be hard to tell which enemy is about to attack and the drop in frames makes it hard to hit that parry.

The combat system is also dropped on you pretty quickly; while elements are tutorialised one by one, it still feels like a lot all at once, and while the game helps you to practice against single enemies, delving into the real game where there are multiple to fight at once leaves you feeling underprepared and confused. It is a system that can be picked up over time though; it took a long time for it to gel with me, but once I figured out what I was doing it was smooth going. From here the main issue is that there are only 12 monsters available in the game and most of the bigger monsters you can grow at your farm are just for research and can’t be added to your party at all. This means that the combat stagnates because new monsters never feel like a substantial upgrade, and not much of what you are doing feels like it ever changes.

6.5

Decent

Positive:

Coherent art direction
Great voice acting
Engaging story

Negative:

Framerate issues
Disconnected gameplay elements
Lack of progression

Farmagia is a very interesting concept with a lot of good ideas, great voice acting and an elaborate story. There is a lot to like, especially if you are a fan of tropey anime romps, but it has its fingers in too many pies, ending up feeling unfocused and not as polished as it could have been. There is definitely a very interesting game in Farmagia with lots of moving parts and a story that clearly had lots of effort put in, but it falls short in a few areas with disconnected farming mechanics and framerate issues. This is a shame because there is a lot of heart to be found within. Any big anime fans are likely to have a good time with the story and voice acting, but outside of that, there isn’t much to grab players.

Farmagia Review – Farming for monsters

Reviewed November 12, 2024 on Nintendo Switch

6.5

Decent

Positive:

Negative:

Bree Maybe

Fresh off the press