Monster-raising games are in no short supply of late. While many are seen as simple Pokémon alternatives, games such as Temtem manage to make a splash if they bring something unique to this tried and true formula. Monster Harvest by Maple Powered Games could be seen as another unique offering. With its fun and addictive blend of slice-of-life farming and dungeon-crawling RPG gameplay, it proves easy to get lost in its deceptively large world.
From the top, the game gives you the feel of its not-so-distant roots. Your uncle, a small-town scientist, has allowed you to leave your unfulfilling big city life to help him out in the country. After arriving, he gives you a small plot of farmland and a house of your own just outside the town. He then fills you in on his greatest scientific breakthrough: plant-based creatures known as Planimals. These goo-born creatures are the result of experiments using mysterious colored oozes on various forms of plant life.
You won’t be able to just hop in and start farming Planimals, however, as your inherited land has been left unattended for quite some time. You’ll need to remove the various unwanted trees, logs, and rocks from your farmland before you till it to lay down your crops. You move around the pixelated world using your WASD keys and map various tools to your arrow keys, then use them by clicking your target. It’s easy to get the swing of things and choose the right tool for the job since you get everything you need to cultivate your lands from the beginning.
Rocks will break open under your pickaxe, harvest lumber with an axe and water your crops with a watering can after tilling your land. There’s an energy meter that drains after each activity, however, which drops even if you miss your target with a tool. When this meter is depleted, you’ll have to either eat food or rest in your house to get it back. You’ll also only be able to recover your entire energy bar by sleeping overnight, unless you want to stock up on food to eat and keep it up. While these activities reward experience and leveling up allows you to learn how to build new things for your farm, it makes the game feel less about growing your farm and more about planning your time.
Planning your days ahead of time will become second nature and you’ll learn to separate your activities between the daytime and the evening to get the most out of each day. When you learn about the mysterious multi-colored slimes that can do everything from turning your plants into Planimals to growing them to full-size instantly, the game begins to go even faster. Combined with the items you find while exploring the world, the ones you’ll sell for money at your acquisition board, and the ones offered at the shops around town, it’s easy to find yourself planning 3 or 4 days in advance.
As the days go by, you learn more about your new home — many different denizens inhabit your uncle’s hometown and it pays off to get to know each of them. They all have their own quirky personalities and a Stardew Valley-esque vibe while speaking to them, with colorful and expressive faces accompanying the text-based dialogue. The denizens also change based upon the time of day you visit the town and some will even give you different information depending on when you talk to them. This makes the world feel alive, especially after being among the citizens for a few days and unlocking new paths around town.
The heart of Monster Harvest, however, lies in the dungeon crawling. Once during the evening of each day, you and your Planimals will be able to enter the dungeon beyond the town. The dark cavern is home to not only rare materials that can’t be found on your farm, but also dangerous monsters that won’t hesitate to attack you. This is where your Planimals shine most and go into battle against enemy monsters, which are always out to attack you. Planimal battles are turn-based and each Planimal learns new moves as they level up and grow.
This can make exploring the dungeon early in the game brutal, as each Planimal will only have one move to begin with. The deeper you go, the harder the enemies will be, so you’ll need to retreat often if you want your monsters to grow. When one of them dies, you’ll be able to use their remains to upgrade your farm, which eases the pain of permanently losing an ally.
While Monster Harvest makes a slow first impression, the many intricate systems are quick to show themselves through mistakes you may make. This gives the game a sharp trial-and-error aesthetic, but also a great feeling of variety with each new 10-day demo stretch offering tons of variation on how you choose to play.
With a charming pixel world full of fun and colorful characters and Planimals to experience and grow with, Monster Harvest is sure to please any fan of the farming sim or monster collecting genre when the game launches this August for PC, Switch, Xbox One and PS4.
A Steam key was provided by PR for preview purposes.
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