Orange Season Review

Game: Orange Season
Genre: RPG, Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam/Epic (Windows/Linux), Xbox One/X/S and PS4/5)
Developer | Publisher: Innerfire Studios & SOEDESCO | SOEDESCO
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $29.99 | UK £26.99 | EU € 29,99
Release Date: October 24th, 2024

A review code was used, and many thanks to SOEDESCO

Inspired by the classics of the genre, Orange Season is a farming simulation that has been growing for many years. In fact, a new early access build was released in December 2022 when Innerfire Studios took over development.

Yvonne wrote an article about the pros and cons of early access, so it will be interesting to see where Orange Season sits. Will all that nurturing deliver an experience worth the wait?

Starting Orange Season

At the start of Orange Season, you can create your own character. There is either a male or female character with 9 different skin colours, including blue or green and 20 different hair colours. You can name yourself and your farm. You also get to select and name a pet, choosing from 6 different types of cat or dog. If you want, you can skip the narrative introduction, and you’ll still have the tools and seeds.

After completing the customisation, the mayor, Julia, launches into a dialogue, explaining a bit about Orange Town and the farmstead. She then challenges you to meet all the residents. Carrying on with the introduction, her brother, Benjamin, explains how to farm and sets you the challenge of growing 5 turnips (seeds provided). With the narrative over, you sleep and awake to your new life.

After clearing some land, you can plant the seeds and then decide how you are going to live your new life in Orange Season. Will you farm, raise livestock, fish, forage or mine. There is a lot to choose from!

Mapping and Tracking in Orange Season

There are 30 residents to find, spread over 8 distinct areas. In theory, the map highlights the current area and shows which residents can be found there. I say “in theory” because, more often than not, the map doesn’t work. There is no highlighted area, and no residents are shown.

Even when it does work, it’s exceptionally difficult to find the residents, especially in the town. A little house picture next to the characters shows they are inside, but I wasn’t sure whether that meant inside somewhere I could access or hidden behind a locked door. If it was raining, the map seemed even more unreliable, telling me residents were outside, but they were nowhere to be found.

Orange Season has a very useful journal. As well as showing you which residents you have met, it keeps track of your tasks and key milestones. You can also view your inventory, save your progress and update the settings.

Farming Elements in Orange Season

There is a wide and varied range of crops. Some seeds can be brought from a local farm, and more are available in the general store in town. Generally, apart from flowers, the crops need to be watered every day.

As well as growing crops, you can raise livestock. In addition to the usual cow, goat and sheep, Orange Season gives you the chance to raise yaks. In the coop, you can keep chicks and hens, and also a rooster, who will occasionally fertilise an egg and thus increase your population. The barn and coop are already built, so it’s just a case of buying the animals.

Not only do you need to upgrade your house to get a kitchen, you then need to purchase various kitchen appliances from the general store. Once done, you can use your harvested crops and collected animal produce to create food. Any items not produced on your farm can be purchased from the store.

Other Activities to Keep You Busy in Orange Season

Fishing is relatively straightforward in Orange Season, although it can only be done at places marked with a redfish flag. Cast your rod, and then interact when you see the exclamation mark. Even with perfect timing, the fish might not be caught. There are different fish at different locations and in different weather conditions.

Your starting hammer is strong enough to mine all the different ore in the mine north of your farm. A ladder will be uncovered as you mine a rock, allowing you to descend. Silver and gold ore are more common in the lower levels.

Unfortunately, not all the flowers can be picked, but there are certainly a lot of different items that can be foraged. As the name Orange Season suggests, there are orange trees all around the map, with other trees available in different seasons. In addition, there are peanuts, daisies, roses, coins, trash, raspberries, blueberries, coconuts, papaya, figs, and so on (including several things I’ve never heard of before!) all ripe for collecting.

There’s Trouble Brewing at the Orange Season Farm

There are no machines to convert your crops to flour or sugar, which means these ingredients need to be brought from the general store. In fact, there is little motivation to grow crops for money, as foraging is more lucrative. Each time you enter an area, the trees are restocked, so it’s relatively easy to earn a couple of thousand each day from collecting coconuts at the beach. The only downfall with foraging is that you only get one storage chest, so at some point, you will have to sell or gift items.

The mines don’t produce rock, so gathering enough rock to upgrade your house is a challenge. Additional rocks, trees, logs and other foraging items reappear on day 15 and day 30. Unless you are unlucky like I was in my first playthrough, and instead of getting extra, my farm was wiped clear of everything.

Gifting is not limited to one per day, so throwing flowers, food or fish at a resident means you can get full hearts within minutes, but there is no marriage option. The storylines are unusual, and I wasn’t quite sure where some of them were going. With over half the quests completed by mid-spring, it all seemed rather unbalanced, and I couldn’t see the long-term plan for Orange Season.

Although there is an option to turn off the tree animation, there is nothing similar for lightning, and the bright flashes might not be suitable for every gamer.

There are quite a few odd ‘typos’: a fish which is supposedly only caught at night during the rain could be caught in the sunshine during the day; bass aren’t found at the beach fishing point but in town; Rory’s picture on the map doesn’t look anything like the flat-capped farmer you see around town; and the golden orange doesn’t increase maximum stamina, just restores stamina.

The End of My Orange Season Farm

Orange Town is a vibrant and interesting place to explore. However, I was forever getting stuck in doors, lost in trees or rocks, or fishing while walking on water. The invisible walls, designed to keep our little characters from harm, did not do their job. Sometimes, I could free myself, and other times, I had to reboot, losing progress.

However, the biggest issue was the game crash when I entered the coop. This happened towards the end of spring and made the coop and, more importantly, the eggs inaccessible. Unfortunately, this meant one of Julia’s requests couldn’t be completed. After 9 hours of play, I decided I would start again, in case it was something I’d done. For the next playthrough, I brought a chick straightaway to start gathering eggs as soon as I could. I had enough to complete Julia’s quest and a couple spare before the issue struck again (this time after 11 hours of play), and with a new request I couldn’t complete, I had no choice but to stop playing Orange Season.

Gameplay

The controls are shown at the start of Orange Season and via the options menu. The tools and items are displayed on separate bars, and you eventually get used to the swapping and changing between them via the 4 shoulder buttons. The D-pad is also used to access the map and journal, although the journal can be accessed via the + as well.

There is no touchscreen functionality. Personally, I found playing on a Switch Lite an uncomfortable experience. The text is small and, at times, goes miniscule and the use of both sets of shoulder buttons made it a bit of a juggling act for me.

Help is given when accessing new areas like the coop or mine, but these notes cannot be revisited, which is a missed opportunity. I entered the coop early on, accidentally clicked continue on the notes and was left wondering what vital bit of information I’d missed.

There is no autosave function, even with the ‘sleep and save’ option, however manual saving can be done at any point, with numerous save slots.

An in-game minute takes a real-time second, so an in-game day generally lasts around 20 real-time minutes as the menus and conversations stop the clock. Using the pillow for a nap speeds up time, and you can ‘sleep’ to go to the next day, at any point.

Conclusion

Orange Season has a wide range of produce, some interesting livestock options, and different types of festivals to similar games in the genre. However, I was disappointed in the overall balance, with no long term plan to keep me playing.

I really wanted to like the game and find out what was going on in Orange Town. However, once the coop is out of order, it is impossible to complete some of the tasks, and for that reason, I can’t recommend it.

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure

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