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Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
Platformer/Rice Planting/Harvesting/Polishing Game?!?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTkKiY6RgAM

It's been in the works since last year, so hopefully it comes out this year.

Boss fights have a bit of bullet dodging elements. I really like quirky mechanics so the Harvest Moon-esque farming simulation part sounds rad.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, looks pretty interesting. Edelweiss seem to make incredibly polished games for a small doujin team.

A small update from E3.

https://www.siliconera.com/2019/06/13/s ... tlefields/

I heard of this from a @CanYouPetTheDog tweet: https://twitter.com/CanYouPetTheDog/sta ... 3312366592

Didn't know that Edelweiss were behind it!

I was psyched after viewing the first preview trailer, then I watched the recent E3 one and heard those stupid voices. So inane to push those infantile cartoon voices, I can't stand them. There better be an option to turn those off.

The sheer amount of hype I have seen for this game, ever since it was revealed all those months ago, is incredible. I don't think most of the hype generators realize this dev made Astebreed, either. Kind of a shame, honestly...

Ooo, release date and new trailer:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... er/.162056

Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin, finally! https://www.amazon.com/Sakuna-Rice-Ruin ... 232&sr=8-1

Edelweiss studied Japanese agricultural farming guides to make the rice farming part of the game as fun as they could! https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ ... e-and-ruin

I was looking forward to this. Amazon shipped the collector's editions in a flimsy envelope. Mine as well as plenty of other people's arrived trashed. Had to send it back.
Having had a preview of the art book (with its bent dog-eared corners) I opted for a refund and will just get the standard edition. The art book is rather bland. Sure there are neat character images, but they are just plainly pasted along the pages, there is no artistry to the layout of the book.
I'm not even sure about the game at this point. The developer and theme draw me in, but I'm afraid the farming aspect may be too tedious.
Nonetheless, it seems this is a once in a generation "special" game, and that I'll actually learn some things from playing it, so I'm still going to give it a go.

It really is a special game. I'm getting drawn more and more into rice cultivation. It is so beautiful, I feel like I'm actually living in the countryside...

Visuals look good. The setting and theme sound really nice too. Hopefully there's a solid game to go along with all of that.

a couple friends had been talking about this, so i placed an order on it - should be here in a week or so. frankly, i'm not impressed at all with the combat, looks a lot like vanillaware shit. but hot damn, i want to cultivate some rice 0-0;;; whacking doofuses in-between upgrading my stats with the rice farming and growing primarily through that seems like a satisfying enough activity loop.

Forum member Zaaarock posted some gameplay vids from the optional(?) dungeon if you wanna see the combat in action. I personally couldn't get into the combat and eventually dropped the game, but only because my laptop wasn't up to spec and had around half a second of input lag. But the further in you get, the wider your moveset becomes, and I could see the potential for some really fun fights.

The rice planting is... oddly engaging? The controls for planting saplings... could be improved. And some parts are literally just the same 3-button QTE over and over again. But it's relaxing in that weird, busywork way. And I like how the sudden appearance of rain in the middle of a stage can either make me panic or sigh with relief, depending on the season and what I'm trying to do with my rice.

Was ambivalent on how separated the rice planting and the combat felt. As far as I could tell, the extent of their connection was that certain enemy drops could be included in your fertilizer to improve certain aspects of your rice. And you boost your combat stats by cultivating a good harvest. Want more HP? Focus on increasing your yield, usually at the cost of lower quality rice. Want to increase some other stat? Use only high quality seeds, plant fewer saplings, and mix up batches of fertilizer using ingredients that improve your chosen stat. On the one hand, it feels kinda tacked-on. On the other hand, it still sorta incentivizes doing good in both halves.

Also kinda disappointed that (from what I payed anyway) you can only make brown and white rice. There are so many different kinds of rice, so it would've been nice to have the option to make those. But the game does take inspiration from a specific kind of rice cultivation from a specific time period in a specific country, so that's excusable.