Ashwood Valley Review

Game: Ashwood Valley
Genre: Simulation, Puzzle, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Xbox and PlayStation)
Developer | Publisher: RedDeer.Games
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $10.99 | UK £9.89 | EU € 10,99
Release Date: June 5th, 2025

Review code used, with many thanks to RedDeer.Games.

Ashwood Valley is the latest offering from RedDeer.Games and here at LadiesGamers, we’ve had the pleasure of reviewing many of their releases. How will Ashwood Valley rate?

Getting to Ashwood Valley

Ashwood Valley launches with a cutscene, which can be skipped if required. It shows our two protagonists, Luna and Draco playing with a magic wand. The spell gets out of hand and after bouncing around the room, cracks the mirror. This transports our protagonists to Ashwood Valley.

Depending on which sibling you choose to play as, the other is transformed into a cat.

Ashwood Valley introduces the player to the controls via an interactive tutorial. You learn how to clean and repair the house, feed and pet animals and grow crops. You can skip the tutorial if you want.

You are then left to work out how to restore your sibling and uncover the mysteries of Ashwood Valley

Farming in Ashwood Valley

Farming is similar to many other games: hoe, plant, water, and repeat the next day. Farming is quite draining on stamina, especially if you are tending to multi-harvest plants, like peas or blueberries, as both the harvesting and watering drains your energy. Many crops will grow in multiple seasons, and seeds can be received from Maya, who visits Ashwood Valley at the end of each week, or by picking wild flowers. However, this is a random reward, so you might not receive crops appropriate to the season you are in or what you need.

The animals in Ashwood Valley start out wild, but with constant feeding and petting, you can tame them, and they will come to live in the house. Apart from the mice, who need cheese, the other animals will eat cut grass. If you don’t feed them each day, your friendship will fade, and eventually, the animals will return to the wild. Once tamed, feeding the animals different crops will change their skin colour.

Exploring Ashwood Valley

Ashwood Valley isn’t massive, but there is enough to explore. Travel far enough and you will find the Ancient Spiritual Being, who will help restore your sibling. There are other residents in the valley, and they will ask for help, and you’ll receive a reward for completing the quest. The quests are very limited and quickly fulfilled.

The pixelated graphics are lovely and change with the season. The town hall calendar even tells you when it will rain. There is so much about Ashwood Valley that is wholesome and cosy.

Unfortunately, I’d completed the objective of restoring my sibling by early summer, so there was little to keep me engaged whilst waiting for the autumn mushrooms to start the long process of trading for sprinklers. Questionably, with my sibling restored, what was the purpose of continuing?

Maybe if some of the animals only appeared in a particular season, or if the seasons were shorter, it would help to make Ashwood Valley more enjoyable and engaging.

Gameplay

Ashwood Valley performs well in both docked and handheld mode, with the text clear and large enough to read on the small screen. However there is no touchscreen functionality.

Although the controls are well explained in the tutorial, they are not as responsive as I would like. On a rare occasion, I would be able to water a row of crops seamlessly, but most of the time it was frustratingly difficult to line up the guidelines on the right square, and then the action button wouldn’t trigger. Petting and feeding the animals was just as awkward, needing to do the action several times to make sure the activity was complete. Not aided by the way the animals stood on top of each other. Maybe a pre-release bug, but I couldn’t get the beehive to produce honey.

Ashwood Valley is designed so the character is centralised to the screen. However, as the run speed is quite fast, when stopping to collect something, there is a nauseating jerk to re-centre the character.

The game saves when your character sleeps. Generally, it took around 10 real-time minutes to play an in-game day consisting of watering the crops, petting and feeding the animals, and running around to collect flowers or mushrooms.

Conclusion

There are some nice touches in Ashwood Valley: unlimited pockets are always welcome, and your little character happily runs around the valley, making exploring quick.

However, the controls are unresponsive and slow to trigger, making the farming and animal management a tedious process. The main objective is too easy to complete, and then there is little to keep you truly engaged.

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure

 

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