I’ve heard of monster training and monster ranching, but monster farming is a new one. In Farmagia, you get to do all of those. In Harvest Moon, which currently lives on as Story of Seasons, I always felt one of my biggest accomplishments was building an extension to my house or barn. It signified moving into a new phase of my sim life and operations as an entrepreneur and family person. Marvelous, known for their farming and farming-adjacent games like Rune Factory, are going for a major renovation on the genres they made their home, trying something vastly different with Farmagia while not completely abandoning farming. It’s a new world for Marvelous, but does this change in direction bear fruit?
Let’s address the elephant in the ground first: Growing and harvesting monsters as if they were crops is a weird premise for a game, and there’s no point where it gets any less weird. A few of the Pokémon-esque monster buddies are plant-like, such as turnips with a face, so that makes at least a little sense thematically. Much odder is growing species from seeds with water and fertilizer that look like actual animals, such as the fluffy fox-wolf hybrid Fangs, plucking them out of the ground, and suddenly having a litter of grown adults ready to fight. I don’t understand the decision to go this route because the farming in Story of Seasons includes raising animals in a more natural way. But it is what it is, and you can’t put your babies back in the ground from whence they came.
That out of the way, Farmagia is an ambitious effort, both narratively and in gameplay. It somewhat forsakes Marvelous’ traditional farming formula but also tries not to stray too far from it. It’s an odd attempt at creating a hybrid with a moderately successful yield that tastes good but has a funny smell. It boasts inspired combat but is more of a glancing blow than a solid hit. It has the trappings of a Shonen anime that was never released. It adheres to RPG tropes yet takes them in intriguing yet bizarre directions. It’s an odd duck that was plucked out of the ground for some reason, and that confounding choice is symbolic of many similarly strange choices made in the overall design. Yet, it manages to be enjoyable, though it had me scratching my head even as I was feeling it in my chest.
The story takes a roundabout route but eventually gets where it should by the end, despite a bumpy ride and going in some spacey directions. There is no way to guess where it would wind up based on the premise. Even if you like the eventual destination, you must be willing to sit through an uneven 30+ hours to get there. You take on the role of Ten, a budding farmagia. Let me take a step back to explain that a farmagia is a denizen of the world of Felicidad who grows and harvests monsters to fight with, generally in protection of their communities. Basically, “farmagia” is a farming mage. Farmagia is largely a war story. Ten is part of a group in rebellion against an overwhelming conquering effort by a powerful militaristic coalition. The hero’s goal is to protect innocent lives and return the world to its previously peaceful state.
Though Ten and his party of friends are undoubtedly the heroes of this story, a lot happens to take the story away from them. Each friend has their own episodic side stories, but Ten is a typical hero of destiny. It doesn’t help that two of his male companions are essentially the same character with differently colored spiky hair. Some of these side scenarios feel a bit forced because of awkward plotting. And the second half is largely a rehash of the first with unnecessary, overly elaborate backstories. Though that all sounds negative, the narrative picks up when it focuses on its villains, whose squabbles over power make for more intriguing stories. And there’s a point where the narrative starts going wild with new revelations about this world that kept me curious to see the outcome.
The segments involving Ten needing to gain a pact from elemental spirits to aid in his crew’s quest are the most fascinating aspects of Farmagia. You can’t have a farming game without romance, but these one-on-one relationships take that tradition in a different direction. All of these spirits happen to manifest themselves as women, and Ten must curry favor with them. That’s not to say that these relationships become romantic or that they go on dates, but that’s not to say they aren’t at all hinting at romance either. Mostly, these optional segments serve to flesh out more about the lore of Felicidad and details about society, such as denizens’ harmonious relationships with tame monsters. It’s quite poignant to learn about these characters who cannot live like ordinary people yet find themselves fascinated by the everyday lives of mortals. These segments are unexpectedly moving and more human than much of the rest of the narrative, even though they’re removed from the main story.
To improve those relationships and advance in the game, you must head outside of town and do combat. Farmagia has a unique battle system that’s a cross between real-time strategy games and Pikmin. You fight your way through a series of levels, similar to a roguelike, with up to four groups of monsters in tow. As you encounter enemies, you essentially fling your monsters at them by group. Keys to success include wearing down enemies’ KO meter (similar to stagger in most other games) and getting the timing down on perfect guards, which is exactly what it sounds like but much more forgiving than your average Souls-like. It’s exhilarating but also feels on-rails, as the game guides nearly every move with its many prompts.
If that makes it sound like combat is at odds with itself, that’s how battle preparation feels, too. All monster groups fall into four types: close-range, long-range, support, and formation (basically defensive). Though different species of monsters fall under each type, you don’t have the option to mix and match monster types for battles, i.e., you can’t have two close-range groups. Though the different species of monsters have unique characteristics, those differences seem negligible, considering enemies have weaknesses against specific types of monsters rather than different monster species. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with making a game simple or easy. But Farmagia gets caught up making its systems feel more complicated than they actually are while also going overboard to guide you through rather than letting you make your own decisions. The game is still fun to a degree, but it’s torn between wanting to present complexity and simplicity and succeeds at neither.
It’s unfortunate that farming’s primary purpose in Farmagia is to feed into combat, though it doesn’t do that adequately either. Considering it’s made by Marvelous, the farming aspect feels overlooked and tacked on to a different game. It feels lacking because the only thing you farm is monsters — no vegetables or any other items. But even farming monsters that you use in combat has a small impact on your experience. Most of the monsters you grow go toward research: on tools to improve farming efficiency and unlock new species of monsters. Especially compared to something like Story of Seasons, farming feels significantly stripped down compared to other farming-dedicated games. There’s no time limit on the farming segments, just the typical energy meter to cap how much you can do each day. There’s no day-night cycle, no changing of seasons, and no changes in Felicidad’s always-sunny weather for a change of pace. Farming is easily the most disappointing aspect of Farmagia.
There’s also the loss of the naturalistic charm and subtle beauty of typical Marvelous farming games. It’s one thing if there’s an artistic reason to create a different mood for a different kind of experience, but that charm is something Farmagia would have only benefitted from. A big issue is the disconnect because you travel between the different areas you need to visit completely via menus. It loses the physical aspect of having to walk from place to place which gives the world a quaint, lived-in, personal quality. In an odd and likely inadvertent way, Farmagia demonstrates the sacrifice peaceful societies experience when they are forced into wartime.
As in any great Shonen anime, the eclectic soundtrack is top-notch, ranging from cheery takes on traditional Japanese music to sweeping choral arrangements and wild power metal. When the story goes for the emotions, the sounds are there to match. The voice acting is in English, and it’s fine if unmemorable. Visually, the characters and the whole world of Farmagia wouldn’t be out of place on Crunchyroll. The physical characters don’t appear much outside of combat and farming. The story delivery is visual novel-style: static portraits with a text box underneath and a handful of short anime cutscenes in impactful moments. For the controls, mapping every single button on the controller to get consistent use is perhaps commendable. However, there are times, mainly when you’re fighting many enemies at once, that targeting is terrible regardless of whether you use lock-on or not.
Overall, when Farmagia succeeds, it does so in spite of itself. The story has its moments, though you have to do some digging to discover the best ones. Whatever the deal with combat is, it’s at least functional. It’s disappointing that farming, of all things, is treated as an afterthought. But the concept is a weird one. Marvelous may have been better off leaving sleeping monsters where they lie (in the ground, where they were grown).
