Okay, so I tore myself from SMTV to play a bit of the current NSO Trial, which is Fae Farm.
I wasn’t too keen on the art style, but it looks vibrant in motion. They nailed the gamefeel here; movement feels tactile, and you can jump anywhere and everywhere, which makes navigating the world a lot more fun. Mirroring what
@touchfuzzy said previously, the QOL features are great. I wish farm sims implement context sensitive tools as the default. Crafting is easy and placing furniture is intuitive.
So, there’s a lot to like in terms of the mechanics. The aesthetics still aren’t my cup of tea, though. And in the 2-ish hours I played I experienced at least four hard freezes, one of which lasted almost five seconds and had me worried my Switch got busted.
The social element feels like it’ll be lacking too, because the villagers don’t just repeat dialogue, they share it. It seems like all the villagers are drawing their lines from the same pool, so they say the
exact same things as the others.
But all in all I like what it’s doing. I think I won’t play it again during this Trial, since I want to focus on SMTV, but I was convinced to buy this sometime down the line.