Game: My Fantastic Ranch
Genre: Simulation, Other
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows), Xbox One/X/S and PS4/5)
Developer | Publisher: Piece of Cake Fabulous | Nacon
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $39.99 | UK £35.99 | EU € 39,99
Release Date: November 17th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Dead Good PR.
My Fantastic Ranch is a bright, colourful and easy-to-play management simulation game. Design and build your ranch, adopt and look after mythical creatures, hire staff, give lessons, enter tournaments and gain a reputation for being the best trainer in the kingdom.
Will this game become a legend or will it just drag on?
Your Personal Assistant
As soon as you start a new game, Feritella, your magical helper appears and guides you through the initial stages. It takes about 20 minutes to follow Feritella’s verbal and on-screen instructions. Although a bit wordy in parts, it’s worth doing as you end up with the start of your ranch.
Once Feritella has finished her tutorial, you are free to carry on developing your ranch as you like. Don’t panic though, your personal assistant will pop back if anything needs explaining!
Levelling Up & Earning Gems
In My Fantastic Ranch, you collect gems (currency) and reputation (experience) by giving lessons, competing in tournaments and completing the on-screen objectives.
The higher your reputation level, the more buildings and decorations will unlock. In order to unlock all the buildings, upgrades and land you need to reach level 10 (it will take about 6 to 8 hours). However, you can carry on playing and increasing your reputation after that.
The more gems you have, the more you can buy, build and enter tournaments.
Build It & They Will Come
You start with enough gems to complete the tutorial builds and have some left over.
There are three areas of land to build your ranch on, although you will only have access to one at the start. The building menu is really simple, with four tabs with just a handful of buildings, fields, decorative items or nature on each tab. It’s easy to see what level the next item unlocks at and it’s pleasing that the cost of each item doesn’t increase exponentially, which can be the case in some games.
Once you’ve selected your building or decoration, a grid appears on the land to help position it. The selected building/decoration remains active, and helpful when placing trees, but not so when placing buildings, I ended up with an unwanted barn. You will get some gems back when you demolish a building, but not as many as it cost to build it.
Nothing is final, you can always modify the location at any point. Although, if you want to move an arena, you will have to wait for any training to finish first. It was slightly tricky to highlight the small trees in order to move them, and removing paths was more luck than skill.
Dragons & Unicorns
Before adopting any creatures, you need a tack room. This controls the number of mythical beasts you can adopt. A tiny tack room allows just 2 creatures to live on your ranch. There is a maximum of four tack rooms. You then upgrade them, rather than build more to increase your ranch size to its maximum of 24 beasts.
Via the tack room, you adopt new creatures, check on the health and happiness of the ones you already have, or donate any you no longer want to keep. Each week you get three new creatures to choose from, and they are all pre-named. You can refresh the selection, although it costs a lot of gems to do so.
There are different types of dragons and unicorns: earth; wind; water; fire; sugar; ethereal; country and celestial. The type of creature is relevant for completing some of the on-screen objectives, but mainly for participating in the festivals. Nonetheless, I managed to achieve level 10 without thinking about the type when I adopted a creature. However, as you progress beyond level 10, you might want to adopt certain types to ensure a more balanced ranch.
Each creature needs a stable to sleep in. Unlike many games, a stable in My Fantastic Ranch is just for one beast, even after upgrades. As well as a bed, your adorable creatures need somewhere to play and food to eat, so you’ll want an enclosure and a barn.
If your dragon or unicorn is unhappy or hungry, then there is a chance of it misbehaving. Luckily, it can be soothed with the press of A.
Your Workforce
In order to look after your ranch, you need staff and that means a staff office to house them in. There is a maximum of 4 offices, and once fully upgraded, you can employ 24 staff. You will need to pay your staff weekly, so don’t spend all your gems!
Similar to the creature selection, you have a choice of three each week, with the option of a refresh. Each person has a starting skill, generally, they are good at cleaning out or feeding, but you can also get those who are better at handling animals or can teach more students.
Make sure you have enough staff to look after your creatures. My dragons got hungry and consequently, very grumpy. On reflection, I think it was because I didn’t have enough staff and had put the barns too far away from the enclosures.
Students, Lessons & Tournaments
One of the main features of My Fantastic Ranch is the training arenas. Once students start appearing at the ranch, you will need to keep them busy by giving them lessons.
There are four different types of lessons: dressage; target practice; circus skills and aerobatics. At the start of the game, you will not have much choice between your students, trainers and creatures, so selecting a lesson is easy. However, a student will favour either a dragon or unicorn, so try to match accordingly, as this increases your rewards.
You can gain a new badge by completing training sessions. The new badge might be a proficiency in the last skill they were practising or an increase in skills like cleaning, feeding, handling, teaching, having more energy, less hunger, gaining more gems or reputation, or paying more for lessons.
Once you build a dormitory, students might like to stay at the ranch. This will generate weekly income and give you the opportunity, not only to improve your students’ skills and gain badges but also to enter tournaments. By selecting the best-suited trainer, student and creature for the tournament, you might win gems and gain reputation, but you do need to get a podium finish.
At level 5, you unlock the festival arena, which is a special tournament for the Prince and Princess. First, you complete standard training sessions to gain enthusiasm and if you have enough enthusiasm, you can enter the Royal Carousel event, a collection of events similar to the arena ones. However, the royal couple will ask to see certain types of creatures perform, so choose wisely to gain the most points.
Weekly Summary
One thing I like about My Fantastic Ranch is the weekly summary which Feritella gives. I’m not sure if the festival entrance fee is included, but I liked seeing my income and expenditure with the profit/loss and the graphical representation of student and creature happiness.
It wasn’t until I saw my students, dragons and unicorns becoming unhappy, that I made more of an effort to scroll down the list when setting up training sessions to check their emotions prior to selecting the individual.
Challenges Codex
One of my favourite things in games is achievements. So imagine my delight in finding the Challenges Codex. Some are really easy to complete, for example, the first one is to complete Feritella’s tutorial. You can gain this one, even if you skip the tutorial via the pause menu. Some are a lot more challenging, like reaching level 20. Some even give hints as to what else might be in the game, like rare dragons and unicorns (I have not encountered any of these yet). You don’t get the full list of challenges though until you reach level 10.
Gameplay
The controls are simple, and appear on-screen to remind you. I did struggle with the camera though, as it didn’t rotate the way I expected, but there was no option to alter it.  The game autosaves, with the option of a manual save as well.
The game has two modes: Normal, where you follow the story, and earn gems and reputation; and Dreamer, a sandbox option for those who just want to create.
There were a few quirks, like some paths looking striped from a distance or occasionally only half a student appearing when they ask to enrol. However, my main issue was when moving a building – the pop-up information box doesn’t clear, so it makes it difficult to see where you are moving the building to.
Conclusion
As it says in the title, My Fantastic Ranch is fantastic. A management simulation game, with a graphical style and subject matter that would appeal to younger players, but not to the exclusion of others.
Although you can only have a limited number of creatures on your ranch, there is still plenty to do and keep you entertained. The festivals and some of the achievements are particularly challenging and require more thought than you imagine.
I’m looking forward to continuing my adventures in My Fantastic Ranch.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 