Mirthwood review

At certain points, Mirthwood – from Bad Ridge Games – feels like two games mashed together. On the one hand, it’s an epic adventure where you must quest across a hostile land to uncover the mysteries of the Ancients and become a powerful hero; on the other hand, it’s a cosy farming Sim where you can have Sims-like conversations with anyone you meet, fall in love, have babies, and raise goats. And honestly, I’m not sure which side of the game I prefer.

It’s fairly front-loaded with the adventure stuff. Yes, you have to go and pick mushrooms and cook tea for your family, but the after-dinner game of Trivial Pursuit is cut mercifully short by a sudden bandit raid that scatters your family and sends you off to the Free Lands, an open-world island just waiting for an unqualified cook with a rusty sword to save it from whatever calamity has surely befallen it.

That said, the calamity seems to just be lots of monsters. The story is fairly enjoyable in a “go here, kill that, bring this back” kind of way, and Mirthwood certainly puts a lot of effort into making the world feel like it’s worth exploring. Those who came before you, ancient or not, were pretty untidy sods and left their shit scattered everywhere for you to find, which makes even the simple act of wandering off the path feel rewarding. A robust loot system and the ability to mould your character more or less exactly how you want to means you and anyone you talk to about Mirthwood will have had a slightly different experience, even if the story itself is the most rigid element.

What holds the adventuring back besides every character and enemy model looking a bit like a flattened Playmobil diorama is the combat. While it functions well enough on a basic level, and fighting other people with swords gives off a satisfying ting whenever your blades ricochet, it feels pretty clunky and unsatisfying overall. You have a full range of movement when walking, but can only attack on a 2D plane to the right or left of your character, so in areas where enemies can and will queue below or above you like you got stuck in a tube of Pringles, combat becomes an almost unwinnable chore. Out in the open, it’s fine, but carelessly spelunk one too many caves and you’ll be in trouble.

You have spells, of course, and ranged weapons, but while they certainly have their uses, in close quarters nothing settles arguments better than the business end of a broadsword and it’s just not always viable, which is a shame when you spend so much time delving dungeons for the Discarded Pants of the Ancient Ones or whatever. Loot comes thick and fast, which again allows for a lot of diversity in build and playstyle, so it’s a pain that you can fall foul so often to enemies queuing politely in tight corridors.

In many ways, the life sim element feels more rewarding. A mix of Stardew Valley, The Sims, and Fable, Mirthwood’s cosy game… er, game, is on point. From the moment you arrive at a dusty rundown farmstead and are told it’s yours now, no questions asked, the focus of this part of the game becomes living a rewarding life. After all, nothing gets you over the violent destruction of your entire family and hometown like planting turnips in neat little rows.

You can talk to anyone you meet and instigate deep conversations about a few dozen different topics in the hope of popping enough little green plus symbols above their heads to either get them into bed or at least willing to die horribly for you should the need arise. You can make friends, enemies, or lovers, and even raise a family on your farm so there’s someone to miss you while you’re off getting murdered in narrow corridors. The level of malleability and customisation is impressive here, though a reliance on following the story might derail some of the family fun.

Regardless of what you’re doing though, the one village-burning horror you can’t escape from is the framerate. Perhaps because it’s got more balls in the air than a lottery machine, Mirthwood often struggles to keep itself moving smoothly. The framerate will chug now and then or pause altogether regularly, during scene transitions, when the day changes to night, if it starts to rain, or if there are too many enemies onscreen at once. It will no doubt get patched and fixed as more content is added post-launch, but right now it is a noticeable issue.

Some of this is countered by the fact that Mirthwood is a very ambitious game made by a tiny two-person team. There are so many systems and mechanics at work at any given time that it’s a small wonder it runs at all, and all the small glitches and frame drops will be fixable in the long run. Or at least most of them will be. If you’re invested in the game and its world, they’ll be less impactful anyway.

Despite these problems, Mirthwood is an enjoyable enough adventure sim. I’ve never been a fan of survival games forcing me to either eat or starve to death without a handful of berries every 24 hours, and any game dev who believes the human body will die after three days without sleep has likely never experienced a decent Lord of the Rings watch party, or development crunch. There’s also a morality system at play that you can reverse by visiting holy(ish) shrines and paying a fee. Being able to go on a killing spree because the local barmaid rebuked your advances, then pay a few hundred gold to wash the blood and matted hair off your sword somewhat belittles the concept of a morality system, but it at least gives you the freedom to genocide farming villages when you feel so inclined without any real downsides. So there’s that.

Ultimately Mirthwood will appeal to those who enjoy a good adventure in the form of something like Outward, and those who love a bit of Stardew, and those who occupy the direct overlap between the two will likely find their forever game here. It’s a genuinely charming and cosy little adventure with a ton of stuff to do and find, and if you can get past the iffy combat and performance issues, there’s a lot of heart beneath the surface.