Game: Farm Together
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer/ Publisher: Milkstone Studios
Price: £17.99|$19.99 |€ 19,99
Rating: EU 3+|America E
Release Date: February 2, 2019
Also available on: PC (Steam) and Xbox One
No review code provided, I bought the game myself
For months now I’ve been nagging on about how the Nintendo Switch needs more good simulation games in its library. Preferably games that combine simulation with crafting or RPG-ing. I turned to Steam to see what cool games that platform has. Games that would be great on handheld. One that I had my eye on came to the Switch just like I wished, and much sooner then I expected too.
I’ve been playing the game this week along with ChamZen. Are you curious about the game? Then read on, because it’s time to make a review for Farm Together.
If you are already playing, you might want to check out our Tips and Tricks in our Guide for Farm Together.
No monsters, no enemies, just creating the best farm possible
The game has no storyline. No amnesia, no town that has fallen to ruin. You just choose your character and off you go: to a plot of land where you will make your own homestead by doing some hard work. The first thing I noticed in the game is the level of customisation. You get a lot of choices for your little farmer. From skin tone to hair colour, height and clothes. The starter farm can be chosen too: want a watery plot or with various levels. Or just your run of the mill average?
A tutorial is in place, guiding you through the first basics of the game. But if I’m honest, I could have done with more background info. The game gives the basics, and left me with a lot of questions. Some of which, even after hours of gameplay, haven’t been solved yet. But, back to the beginning.
After the choices are made, you find yourself in a big field with some trees, a bus stop and a little strip of asphalt. And lots and lots of empty field. Pressing A on a patch of grass lets you hoe it into a useful piece of land. Pressing A again brings up the crops you can sow. A again waters it, and when it’s ready, you press the same button to harvest. Pretty easy. No tool selection needed. And even watering isn’t really necessary. The crops will grow regardless, watering just shortens the time they need to grown. What’s nice is that rain has the same effect.
Add animals, crafting buildings and a farm house
What is a farm without animals? So there are animals to keep too, all sorts. The funny thing is that you “plant” them much in the same way that you grow a crop. The animal can roam around in the near vicinity of the patch of land where it came into the game. But you spread out the food in the same place, and it doesn’t go far. No fence or barn needed.
In the usual farming games you fish the streams and rivers. Not in Farm Together: here you create your fish ponds much like you bring your animals to life. Many sorts of fish too, and you can make the fish pond as big as you want while mixing the sort up.
Harvesting your crops gives you money, experience and the crop itself of course. When you have collected lots of produce and crops, you will also want to do something with it. In Farm Together, you place storage sheds, crafting buildings and market stalls. The storage building raise the limit of things you can hold. And the market stall for fruit allows you to exchange your apples for diamonds. Crafting buildings take your crops or produce, and turn it into a product for money.
What is cool is that you get your very own tractor. It slurps gasoline, but at least it makes quick work of your farming chores.
#NintendoSwitch #farmtogether Having a great time on my tractor! @MilkbagGames pic.twitter.com/D2dWQYRXMj
— LadiesGamers (@YvoCaro) February 9, 2019
What surprised me about Farm Together is this: there is no real interaction. Not with other characters in the game. Not with your animals, you don’t need to brush them or milk them. (I had no idea a cow could make it come out in bottles!).
And not with your crafting buildings. It’s a matter of putting things in and picking things up again after it’s been worked on. It’s fine for me, but if you like the socialising part with villagers in Harvest Moon, this may disappoint you.
Several currencies in place
Farm Together has several forms of currency. You have your gold, but also diamonds. Then there are medals and tickets. Seeds, trees, animals and flower seeds can be bought with gold. Buildings (stalls or for crafting) can be bought with diamonds or medals. Houses can be bought with money, lots of it. I have been playing for quite a while now, but I haven’t yet found what the tickets are for.
With everything you do, or things you add to your farm, your experience goes up. And the higher level of experience gets you new items in the game.
This way of working with several kinds currency doesn’t do the game justice in my opinion. I found that even closing the game, and going in daily, gives you gold just for “logging in”. It makes you feel like there’s a counter somewhere that can tell you any moment: “your energy is depleted, do you want to buy additional energy?”. Which there isn’t, obviously. It feels as if this game was made with the possibility of being released as a freemium mobile game in mind. Which is a pity, as the route they are taking is from Steam to gaming consoles.
In game time versus real world time
The way time works in the game is that there is a day and night cycle, and seasons only last 17 real world minutes. As most crops can only be sowed in a specific season, this influences what you can grow. It also influences what you can harvest when it comes to the trees: my banana trees only give fruit in Summer, although the last bananas can be plucked when Autumn already started.
The growing time for corps and animal produce however isn’t tied to in-game time: it’s real time. So the fact that pumpkins take 2 days to grow, means you shouldn’t sow only pumpkins, as you wouldn’t have much else to do then. Mixing things up works best, slow growing crops and fast growing, depending on the amount of time in a game you can spend.
It also makes for some fun calculations. Depending on the price, the yield, the growing time minus the gold you have to spend making the ground ready to plant in again makes for your profits. So if you have time to game, you might want to sow more melon or lettuce. And if you know you can only check back after work, sunflowers or California poppy are good.
I’ve seen reviews online from people who are very disappointed with having to wait. But to me, it’s okay. Farm Together isn’t just a farming sim, it’s a faming management game. That’s where the fun is.
Together is the key word for this game
Visiting and farming with friends is fun and works well in that it is pre-determined what you can do in your virtual friends farm. So no mishaps with accidentally pulling out crops or such. The setting can be that you can do nothing, or you can water and harvest, or you can sow crops too. And help with fulfilling quests too.
You can also choose to interact with friends only (Switch friends) or with anyone in the world. Signing into their guest book makes you feel a connection which is nice. When you are out visiting you’ll be surprised at what creativity people come up with, amazing.
Conclusion
If you stuck with me through this rather lengthy review you might have gotten the impression that I’m a bit critical about the game. But in fact, the game has really gripped me. I think about playing it during the day when I’m doing other real life stuff. And that’s always a good sign. So I do see why it may not be everyones cup of tea, but it is definitely my kinda game!
The game reminds me of HayDay, the mobile game that I sunk many, many hours into over the past years. And even though I feel they shouldn’t have given it the feel of a freemium game Farm Together has the same addictive vibe. HayDay but better, without the need for micro transactions and a much, much more vast playing field.
Graphically it’s a wonderful looking game. There are tons of customising options. For you character, for your tractor, for you pet and for your house. It controls well, although it can be funny to run across your field and seeing distant tree pop up out of nowhere when you do.
I’m pretty sure this will not be the end of playing Farm Together for me, and I’m going to give it an
