Farmagia review

Although I’m someone who once upon a time wouldn’t have considered myself a fan of farming games, we’ve reached a period in the genre where there’s a crop-based game out there for everyone. For the more traditional farming experience we have Stardew Valley, for those looking for more RPG elements we have Rune Factory, and if you want to gather veggies to compete in dance battles then there’s Ooblets. Farmagia is another wonderfully unique farming game, which is all about growing monsters to fight in Pikmin style combat.

The world of Felicidad is made up of five continents, who for a long time all got along thanks to the hard work of their supreme leader ensuring peace. Unfortunately when he passed a new power hungry politician rose to power, and is pretty much set on becoming the dictator of this fantasy universe. The one continent that is trying to fight back against the evil Glaza happens to be the one our hero Ten lives on, and as a promising young Farmagia he’s happy to join the resistance and fight the good fight. The story has a very familiar anime feel to it, and is way more compelling than I expected from a farming game.

Now you might be wondering what a Farmagia is, and it’s fairly simple: a Farmagia grows animal Buddies from seeds and uses them to fight. You’ll spend more time fighting than farming in this game though, with plenty of dungeons (called Mazes, for a fairly obvious reason) full of demons that need battering. With dozens of little buddies by your side though you’ll likely make short work of them.

You control Ten (or one of his Farmagia mates) as you walk around a monster filled maze, but there’s no actual way to directly fight the enemies. Instead your face buttons are assigned to your different animal allies, and by pressing their corresponding button you’ll send them charging into battle. Watching your wolves batter a massive angry plant is always enjoyable, but there’s more to combat than that.

Each enemy you fight has a specific weakness, which is displayed very obviously next to its health bar. This is fine when there’s only one baddie to worry about, but as the action gets more hectic you’ll have to send different Buddies to fight different enemies all while withdrawing them to avoid damage and help you defend. Ten himself is pretty frail so you’ll need to block incoming attacks, and if you time it right you’ll parry them perfectly and eventually wear down the enemy’s stamina so you can unleash a legion attack.

While this is an enjoyable gameplay loop, it doesn’t take too long for you to realise that there’s not a whole lot of nuance to this combat. It’s fairly fun and flashy (especially as you gain access to new badass Buddies) but after a few hours of hitting obvious weaknesses and waiting for your special attacks you’ve kind of seen everything the game’s combat has to offer.

This is only made worse by the fact that all the dungeons you explore in Farmagia are basically identical. You’ll wander around the same (admittedly very vibrant) corridors and fight very similar enemies, gaining loot that’s rarely particularly exciting either. Even the random abilities you can gain from Fairy Dens rarely feel like they have an impact in combat, making every dungeon trip feel like a bit of a crawl.

Exploring mazes is good for one thing though, finding monster seeds. By growing these on your farm you’ll gain access to new Buddies you can take on adventures, or Research Creatures. Ultimately these all end up with you having slightly more powered up monsters, but it’s always to such a minor degree that it’s barely noticeable.

The farming itself is pretty threadbare too, involving just a few steps of preparing the soil, planting a seed and watering it. It’s the most basic few steps of farming a game could have, and given the word farm is right there in the name some will likely be disappointed.

Farmagia is an ambitious game which just falls short of really hitting the mark in any meaningful way. The story is charming and the combat is fun to begin with, but it just lacks the depth to keep you engaged up to the credits. Farming is way too basic too, lacking the hooks the genre usually keeps you invested with. Farmagia isn’t a bad game, but it’s a tough one to recommend over its peers.