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StarTopic The Official 'Life Simulation RPG' Thread |ST|

Oh I love this thread, glad to see it updated. I watched the marvelous presentation and thought there was some promising stuff, the Eastern Rune Factory game especially looks really interesting!

I was wondering if the rpg project they spoke about based on life means it has life simmy elements or if that was more thematic.
 
I'll be looking forward to learning more about RF6. After buying RF5 and being mostly underwhelmed in more than one regard, I can only hope 6 will be more to my liking.
 
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Hey everyone, I don't know if this is news or even relevant to anyone besides myself (since I never played either), but SoS: Friends of Mineral Town and Rune Factory 4 S are available on Gamepass. I've only heard exceedingly high praise for RF4 in particular so I'm super excited to dig in to it.
 
Now that A Wonderful Life (remake) is out, has anyone else here picked it up? They had it for almost half price at my local games store (blanket summer sales hell yeah), so I grabbed it even though I wasn't sure I was interested.

I'd say so far I'm enjoying it, I'm not 100% sold on all the things they changed (some are definite improvements, some are pretty lateral trades), but it feels overall still worth playing for fans of the original (as long as you're okay with some things being different) and good enough on its own non-nostalgia merits for people who haven't played it before (though I would hesitate to recommend it as someone's first in the series).

Overall the big changes are:
  • The art style changed a lot. YMMV on this one - I don't mind it too much, but some changes work better than others. I don't think the new animal designs are as good (sans cow, which stayed the same), and I wish the environments looked less flat. But the texture work on the characters looks quite nice even if I think they changed some of their designs around a wee bit much.
  • The new errands/requests system is a nice little addition, where people ask for specific items and you get rewards for bringing them.
  • Lumina is back as a bachelorette from the PS2 edition, and there's a new bachelor available, Gordie (Cody in the original, I didn't recognize him at all until I looked him up, his design changed quite a lot).
  • Character customization! The options are a little limited but quite nice, nothing is gender-locked (hair, faces, or outfits), and you just pick what pronouns you want at the end, including they/them as a third option. The marriage options are no longer locked to be heterosexual-only either, and being gay does not have any mechanical differences from being straight.


Now on an unrelated note, have there been any news at all for the Fantasy Life i release date? They mentioned summer 2023 originally, right?
 
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Despite what I posted about Rune Factory, I actually have been focusing on the AWL remake. It scratches the itch really well. It's pretty exactly what I expected and wanted.

Also I'm pretty sure the original was also on 10 day seasons? That's what I remember anyway
 
Metroid said:
Despite what I posted about Rune Factory, I actually have been focusing on the AWL remake. It scratches the itch really well. It's pretty exactly what I expected and wanted.
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Yeah, I'm surprised not just at how much nostalgia it's stirring up for me, but how much I'm still enjoying it on its own merits past that. The bachelor options are still pretty garbo but I'm finally realizing my childhood dream of marrying Nami, which was too hard for little preteen me to figure out haha. I don't even have to play a straight boy to do it this time either (this is a butch4butch farm now).

Metroid said:
Also I'm pretty sure the original was also on 10 day seasons? That's what I remember anyway
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Wait, shit, was it? I'll admit I haven't played it since I was in my teens, so there's a high chance I'm just misremembering (or conflating with some of the others I played shortly after), but I could've sworn the game was way slower than this.

Fake edit: Okay yeah I went and checked and apparently it was always 10 days. Must've gotten it confused with some of the other games? That's my mistake. I'll edit my previous post.
 
Did anyone pick up Fae Farm? I'm trying to get through Sea of Stars before I buy anything else lol but would love to hear how folks are getting on with it!
 
Donnie said:
Did anyone pick up Fae Farm? I'm trying to get through Sea of Stars before I buy anything else lol but would love to hear how folks are getting on with it!
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I did! I am also trying to get through Sea of Stars so I’ve only played a couple hours but I’m really digging it. The big thing I’ve noticed is character movement is awesome, you can really just run and jump around anywhere which is great. Everything is every vibrant and animated and full of life. There is TONS to do and craft but no pressure. Guides you along with quests from the characters to introduce gameplay elements.

A couple QOL things I like is the game will just pick the right tool for you contextually - so if you’re highlighting a tree, pressing A will use your axe, a stone and you’ll use your Pickaxe, etc. Saves a lot of time from screwing around. Same If your energy is getting low and you have food in your inventory, a little more will come up saying press ZR to eat. I also like at midnight, no matter what you’re doing the game will just zip you back to your house for bed, so you can really maximize your days without worrying about that night time run back to your house.

Runs and looks great on Switch, only thing I’ve noticed is a bit of hitching here and there when it auto saves or loads something in but not very frequent. I’m sure the tech experts would find more issues but I think it’s great.

Yeah, I think it’s excellent and reviews are underrating it. If you’re into this genre you gotta check it out.
 
Yeah I'm hearing great things about Fae Farm so I'm considering it... I'm kind of a "Story of Seasons/Rune Factory elitist" and no other game (apart from Stardew Valley but that one really is special because it really is "i'll make my own Story of Seasons, using everything I like about those games, and getting rid of everything that's annoying") has ever hooked me, so I'm bit unsure as if it'll hook me, but the fact that it has a physical release is tempting me a lot.
 
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.
 
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Haven't saw this thread active in quite sometime which is a shame! Maybe there isn't an appetite but can't hurt to try.

I've been playing Bandle Tale which is the last game in Riot's efforts to expand the LoL universe with their Riot Forge label (which recently was closed). It's made by the developers of Graveyard Keeper and despite having very different aesthetics and vibe (although it does have some of the same tongue in cheek humour), it's quite similar in that it's a farmy life sim that is very skill tree driven.

In this game you're travelling sky island to sky island in an effort to reconnect lil folks called Yordles, both physically and culturally. You take your cosy little backpack home with you and on each island you can roll out different carpets from your home in order to run a cafe, run a store, hold town parties and so on to make the towns people happy. Setting these events up requires lots of gathering, crafting and unlocking further skills which then feed back into the loop of gathering and crafting. Its both a very chill no hassle game (no stamina bar here and night time does not send you to bed!) and also a game that keeps you very very busy moment to moment. There's always another job to do or material to forage towards your next goal. It's a good time! The game doesn't require any previous knowledge of the league world or characters and is totally stand alone so maybe worth looking up some trailers and gameplay, I'm having a great time :)
 
Donnie said:
You take your cosy little backpack home with you and on each island you can roll out different carpets from your home in order to run a cafe, run a store, hold town parties and so on to make the towns people happy
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That sounds like a great time. Time to wishlist it!

Regarding life sims, I did recently play through Bear and Breakfast, which is pretty cool for anyone who likes scrambling around trying to optimize earnings. The UI needs a lot of work though, it can often be a hassle to do basic things like arrange furniture.
 
meatbag said:
That sounds like a great time. Time to wishlist it!

Regarding life sims, I did recently play through Bear and Breakfast, which is pretty cool for anyone who likes scrambling around trying to optimize earnings. The UI needs a lot of work though, it can often be a hassle to do basic things like arrange furniture.
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Aw I always wanted to play this one, it looks really fun. Is it kind of a case of being obvious the UI was thought of with a mouse in mind?
 
Donnie said:
Aw I always wanted to play this one, it looks really fun. Is it kind of a case of being obvious the UI was thought of with a mouse in mind?
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The UI definitely seems more suited for mouse and keyboard, but I also think that the UI would still be finicky even with that setup. Definitely could use way more polish in that area.
 
So, I've been replaying Hometown Story on the 3DS with the intention of actually finishing it for once, and I have thoughts to share.

1. I don't think it's as bad as most critic and player reviews make it out to be. Sure, the gameplay doesn't exactly shine by its engagement, but listening to podcasts during the more repetitive parts like keeping the shop while waiting for cut scenes to trigger makes it a chill and comfy experience overall. And the characters and events are honestly pretty fun for the most part. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Holy crap I did not see the actual death of that kid Harvey coming. It's all fun and games and lighthearted interactions for tens of hours and then BOOM coffin procession. At first I legitimately thought it would turn out he was just hiding somewhere and that he would turn up again, but apparently nope, kid had a tragic accident and genuinely passed on. It did tug on my heartstrings a bit, and now I'm mildly apprenhensive of what else might come up next haha.
 
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