Introduction
Today we are going to look at a new farming game, but is it any good or fun to play? The game that I am talking about is called Monster Harvest, we have received a key in trade for a review. In this game you will inherit a farm in planimal point, as this is also a dungeon crawler with Pokémon like battles! Your crops can turn into monsters, livestock or even mounts! In the beginning, your farm is a huge mess though, and you will need to clean it up!
What did I think before playing Monster Harvest?
The trailer for Monster Harvest looked fun, and it seemed like we found a great new indie farming game! You will need to collect slime to alter your crops, There is also some action RPG elements and Pokémon like battles. Both my wife and I were very interested and expected a lot of this game, but for more information on what to expect, we went to the Nintendo Page!
The Nintendo Page
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/monster-harvest-switch/
On this page you will learn some basics of Monster Harvest, the main part is of course farming, but you also need to crawl into dungeons to mine useful ores! There are also dozens of items to craft and a lot more! My wife and I were very intrigued and booted up the game! Down below is a picture with all craftable items.
Rating
I rate Monster Harvest with a 6.0 before playing.
Even though we were very excited to play this game, my gut feeling said something was wrong. The trailer made me think that the game was incomplete or in early access. However, there is no mention of early access anywhere.
Story
The story starts with you inheriting the farm of your crazy uncle inventor who learned how to use slimes to make planimals. A whole new town has appeared around the lab of your uncle, however Slime CO has taken over the dungeon, and it seems that they are up to some shady business, it is up to you to save planimal point.
Rating
I rate the story of Monster Harvest with a 1.0
SPOILERS AHEAD, DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE STORY TO BE SPOILED!
LAST WARNING FOR SPOILERS!
The story seems to be unfinished, the dungeon is only five small levels long, after which you can beat the slime queen. She tells you to defeat the leader of Slime CO. After doing so nothing happens, you get some ore out of the chest and that is it. It seems that this might be a bug and a cutscene is supposed to trigger, however I am not sure. Also, the final boss does not respawn for some odd reason.
Gameplay
The main gameplay element is off course running your farm and making livestock, however there is already one problem here. Livestock is worthless compared to crops. A fully grown chicken for example will lay an egg which is worth 60 gold every three days, this sums up to nothing. It is better to sell all your livestock immediately! This will net you over thousand gold for each chicken, you can make a chicken for 500 gold, this is a very neat exploit for infinite money!
There are three seasons, each season has different crops that you can grow. All crops give a different kind of planimal which you can use to fight in the dungeon where you can find ores to upgrade your tools. However, every action that you will take will consume stamina, when your stamina bar is empty, you will need to rest in your bed until the next day!
A lot of the actions are broken, and the user interface is very clunky. While playing, we found a boatload of bugs in every corner of the game. We even encountered a few game breaking bugs and many exploits. There is another issue which might be a problem for a lot of people, especially if you dislike hardcore modes. Every time your planimal dies in the dungeon, your planimal will be gone forever, slaughtered by another wild planimal because you wanted to live on the edge! When the battle is south, your planimal cannot escape and your planimal will embrace death!
All that is left to do is bury your planimal on your farm so that your new planimals will grow stronger, yes this is really how the mechanics work in this game! Battles are sluggish and broken. Your sword is used to kill slimes and initiate the first strike in battles. Your other tools are used for farming and chopping down trees. Even though there is a lot to do in Monster Harvest, nearly every aspect is broken. I tried to make a video of the blue slime exploit I mentioned earlier, but instead I got greeted by a game breaking bug!
Rating
I rate the gameplay of Monster Harvest with a 1.0
Even though the premise of Monster Harvest is fun, and I did have a fun time with my wife playing this game, every single thing is broken in Monster Harvest.
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics are quite good in Monster Harvest, at least that is what you would think at your first glance. However, the user interface is bad, there are a lot of graphical issues, black random screens, and a lot more problems! This looks like pre-alpha footage!
Sound
The soundtracks are fun, if they work, but they get jumbled up regularly and make weird sounds! The sound effects get garbled up as well, but they are good when they work. However, it seems that the developer still has along way to go! I think that the extremely sudden loud sounds in battle might have made me deaf.
Rating
I rate the sound and graphics of Monster harvest with a 4.0
There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to fix up Monster Harvest in the graphics and sound section.
What did I think after playing Monster Harvest?
Even though my wife and I enjoyed this game a lot despite all the bugs and exploits, it is insane how many bugs we have found. Did this developer not hire a play tester? This game has an amazing premise with a lot of potential. It seems that my gut feeling is once again confirmed.
Did you know the max level is 17? How strange is that? There are like 16 items to craft in the whole game, around six or seven of these items can be bought with gold! Your planimals can level higher than you, also there are mega planimals which you can get with super slime, but there are normal planimals who are way stronger! There is no balance whatsoever!
Rating
I rate Monster Harvest with a 1.0 after playing.
This is an unfinished game at the time of writing, I would avoid this game for at least a year until more updates have come out! If you are on console, maybe longer!
What are my personal thoughts about Monster Harvest?
Even though this game is utterly broken and a complete mess, my wife and I did have a fun time when playing. We laughed a lot at some of the bugs that we encountered. We did dislike the mechanic where your planimal dies permanently without an option to turn this off or to flee a battle when you know you are going to lose.
Rating
My personal Rating of Monster Harvest is a 7.8
We could not stop laughing at all these bugs, however this game has great potential and one day I hope it loves up to that potential!
Last Words
Pros
- Monster Harvest has a good premise that could make a fun game!
- Personally, the game is fun with the dungeons and the planimal battles.
Cons
- The story ends without a scene.
- Planimals that die are gone forever
- You cannot flee battles or switch out to other planimals in your party
- Major game breaking bugs
- Graphical and sound bugs
- Prices of items are unbalanced.
- Stamina is unbalanced and will be used even if you miss while mining or chopping trees
- The planimal battles with other trainers are only once a week in game.
- The bunker is the only place where you can grow crops of every season, however it is unlocked after completing the game.
- There is only one dungeon with five small levels.
- You can only level up to level 17 even though this is not early access, this can be easily achieved in the first season.
- Your planimals can level higher than your main character.
- There are around 12 items to craft that you cannot buy in shops.
- Your sword is useless and only does 2 damage when maximum upgrades have been applied.
- Planimal battles are unbalanced, normal planimals can be stronger compared to the *super strong* mega planimals.
- Building relationships in town seems to do nothing except for a few discounts.
- You can upgrade the house, but the upgrades adds odd rooms to your house, which makes it more annoying.
- The user interface does not work properly and displays a lot of bugs.
- You can cook meals at your house but the button to start cooking is broken, this will also stop all the shops from working.
- Shops will randomly stop working.
- When initiating fishing, you will fish forever as there is no cancel button.
- Your mount will disappear at random intervals
- There are festivals in town, but except for a shop you cannot participate in the festival.
There are a lot of problems in this game, I think I failed to mention them all, however we did have fun when playing this game. I would suggest waiting for many years before you start playing, that is if the updates remain consistent!
Final Rating
2.6
Let me know what you think of Monster Harvest in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
If you liked reading this review, maybe you would like to share this review with your friends!
sin jung chul
The game is just whatever. I read it well.
supersven
This game is utterly broken 😀
Samet Yalçın
you like nintendo games im sure now 😀
krutarth
>The story ends without a scene.
lmao what is the developer thinking!?! 7 rating is too generous for now.
supersven
7 is my personal rating, as I did have fun playing the game
the objective, gameplay and all elements combined, the real rating is a 2.6!
Javier del Ríos
2.6, that must be some kind of record for you!
fano23
Already seen that game before, it's not unique but was looking good with potential. Hope everything can be fixed and improved so it will be an actual great one.
supersven
there is a lot of work to do for the developers!
me gusuri
It looks good, but has too many cons.
supersven
It sure has a lot of problems!
Vaclav Slavetinsky
Sadly not ready to roll out yet. I've been seeing this more and more often lately.
supersven
yes, I have as well but some of these games are good but finding them is like looking for a needle in a haystack!
Jaromir Krzyszczak
The gameplay resembles me the Minecraft. sad it has so many bugs 🙁
supersven
I hope it will all get fixed in the future!
Alamar
Game had potential but looks like it is really broken and unfinished.
supersven
Very unfinished!
Ray Law
I like the pixel art and I appreciate that the dev was super ambitious even though it doesn't look like the systems worked together.
supersven
They rushed the project sadly.
eFe
I think in July I played the demo before it came out and it seemed to have potential, it's a pity that after reading your review and seeing the others from steam I see that either they released it too early or they didn't know how to manage their ideas and it was half done, maybe they can fix it, but with so many cons I see it difficult.
Nice review 🙂
supersven
They rushed the project, all they needed to do to avoid backlash is add an early access stamp and people would come out of the wood works with bugs and things that needed to be fixed!
SensaHuMuR
Looks like you've got a Monster theme running across your reviews. 9.2 to 2.6 is a pretty stark contrast though (2.9 would have been just perfect 😛 ).
supersven
hhaha, that would have been a good one! Well the second part is just mumble jumbo cash grab. If you read the review, you might have seen how bad the story and gameplay is!
RedDevil_bp
I thought this game would have some hope, you did say you were laughing a lot. But then I saw all the cons, I'm like...yeah no
supersven
The bugs were annoying but also hilarious.
The developers rushed this game way to much!
jon doe
pity the planimals