Recent reviews by Simulated Link

This is hands down the best remake yet for Story of Seasons / Harvest Moon.
The graphics are, for the first time imo, great, and really breathes life into the entire game.

The Bazaar system completely changes how you play the game. You can sell items to 1 vendor in town, but every Saturday you set up a stall and sell your goods yourself. There are lots of ways to increase popularity, price, etc of the stall and it's very engaging. You spend each week working your butt off to get things that are ready to sell on Bazaar day.

Music is wonderful and there are different themes for each season, and time of day which is nice. Levelling up items in the game is where the Nature Sprites come into play. You gift them items and at certain thresholds they will increase the quality of everything in that section (crops, forageables, fish etc)

There is fishing, mining, bug catching, and a LOT of festivals and heart events for NPCs. A decent amount of this is also voiced which is very welcome and has not really been present to this degree before.

I did not play Grand Bazaar on the DS, but I have noticed several things in this remake that I know from Trio of Towns. Maybe they were in the original GB game but if they were not, then I'm fairly confident the next remake will be Trio of Towns - which is in my opinion the best this entire series has ever done.

Anyways, if you are a fan of this series or genre then I *highly* recommend Grand Bazaar to you. It is beautiful, has many layers, and really is the best iteration of this series I have yet seen (other than ToT lol)

Ok wow so I don't leave reviews of Early Access games after just 2 hours played but this game is great!

It's a 2-D farming/life sim which sounded really weird to me but it really does just work. The game has a really big playing area already and there is fishing, mining, farming, quests, skill trees, monsters, etc etc.

The pixel graphics are really nice, and the soundtrack is amazing and a pure vibe.

I'm honestly shocked at how solid the game is on EA release day. I did not encounter any bugs, and had a blast playing and only stopped because I've got to sleep.

If you like Stardew Valley or games like it, and are ok with it being on a 2D plane, then I can't recommend this enough. The price is great, and the game as it stands is a *very* solid base to build from.

I give it a 9/10 and can't wait to see how it develops :)

I played the first Crashlands on multiple systems for hours and hours and loved it.

If you enjoyed Crashlands 1, then you will also enjoy the sequel. It takes what the first game did and amps everything up to 11. Here are some highlights:

--Music is really, really good. The vibes hit just right.

--The graphics are....whoa. It's stunningly pretty.

--The building/crafting system has gotten a lot of love. There are tons of things to make your perfect space. Oh, and there are actual walls now on houses!!

--The battle system has gotten a nice glow-up and is more complex than the first game. I'm playing on Normal difficulty and for me at least, the first few hours were tough. You can and will die quickly in the beginning but don't worry you will soon be making new weapons and armor and even the playing field some.

--The entire world is hand-crafted for the sequel. The first game was largely procedurally generated. It shows in all the details. More cohesive layouts and things don't look like they were just thrown at a wall and see what sticks lol.

--Story/Writing is still really good. There is lots of comedy but still serious stuff going on too, and I'm intrigued to see where the story goes.

As for things that could use some adjustment:

-- You run speed at the beginning of the game is very slow, and the first couple upgrades are very small. I have not reached a point yet where I don't feel like I'm wading through goo to a degree and I hope that changes later with more equipment.

--I may have missed this, but I would love a way to access past conversations. An NPC told me to go find a fisherman to start fishing and told me what area but it was not marked on my map and was not an actual quest - so I still have not found this person as I do not remember where to look

--For building homes, I would love to see a bit more explanation in the beginning of the game. Especially regarding support beams as I really had to fiddle around the first time trying to figure out exactly what the game wanted me to do. You have to place support beams in order to keep adding walls to a structure (for support) - I do understand it more now but I think a lot of people may get hung up on this.

In conclusion, Crashlands 2 is everything I was hoping it would be. Kudos to the devs for taking a good first game and absolutely knocking it out of the park for the sequel!

Traveler's Rest has come a LONG way since it's release into Early Access. It was pretty barebones at launch, and some time after that a new company took over development of the game. They have completely redone all the graphics in the game. They have added farming, tons of new options for making food and drinks, new areas including a castle town (and a story now so you know why you are even playing), and just a lot of polish.

It's a ton of fun now, and features way more than simply serving drinks in your tavern. And it's still in EA so there are even more updates to come. I highly recommend this game in its current state to anyone who thinks the idea sounds cool. It's a great time!

Farmer Against Potato Idle is one of the better idle games I have played - and I've played a lot!
The game is very fair with handing out currency so you can play for free if you'd like to.
There are many, many systems in place to juggle which means there's basically always something to do.

If you are a fan of idle games then this is an easy recommendation!

I have like 1500 hours in Farm Together 1 and was addicted to it for a loooong time. Farm Together 2 is a familiar sequel. If you enjoyed the first game then you surely will like this as well.

Some gameplay systems are pretty much the same as FT1 - such as:
--Activities inside your house. It's the same system with a stove, easel, and piano.
--A lot of crops/flowers/animals/trees etc reappear for the sequel
--You are still gathering gold, crystals, and ribbons like the first game.

Now to things that are different:

--The *big* thing is that your can terraform your entire farm! At farm level 30 you will unlock this feature and can raise and lower the terrain (up 2 levels and down 2 levels from ground level). This means that the layout of your farm is completely in your hands now. There aren't static objects you can't move anymore. This is a really fun feature that adds a lot to the game.

--Fish are now ready to harvest based on a number of seasons. Some will be 2 or 3 seasons, others 8 or 10. It's a good change imo.

--On this note, there is now a limit to how large you can make fish ponds - you can make one as big as you want but after a threshold you will start incurring a penalty to profits from the fish.

--There is now a town in the game that you can visit anytime. And you will be visiting often because all of the stalls/shops are now in town. There are a lot of "spaces" where you can build the shops so you can place them in whatever order you like.

--On that note, fuel is also somewhat in town too. The stall to upgrade your fuel is in town. This increases the max amount your fuel depots can hold and how fast they recharge. You are still building the actual fuel depots on your farm.

--Instead of building 800000 barns on your farm to increase storage space for all your products, there are now 2 systems that replace this. There is a warehouse you can build in town that as you upgrade will increase storage of all products. Then, each stall can be upgraded and the increases how many you can have at a time, and also how fast that stall merchant restores their crystals. So yeah there's a limit to how much you can sell now, that gets easier as you upgrade more. I don't honestly love this system, and feel the merchants have way too little currency for the amount of things you will be harvesting.

--There are new crops and animals and fish etc mixed into the ones from the first game and they are cool to see as it provides more variety.


I have not run into any bugs in my 17 hours yet. This is a very polished EA release. There is a ton of content right now but they will be adding more of basically everything as it progresses. There is a roadmap available as well - things that are missing that are important are things like farmhands, gold nuggets (not really sure if these are even coming back or not), events, and more advanced buildings to make higher level things.

However, if you liked FT1, I can wholeheartedly recommend picking up the sequel right now. It's great, and only going to get better :)

A true sequel to Suikoden 1 and 2. Murayama's passing makes this a truly bittersweet experience, but it is true to the core tenets of the franchise.

Graphics are well done and the music is incredible. Everything you love about Suikoden is here and this is an easy recommendation to fans of the Suikoden series.

Peaceful Days has been in Early Access for nearly 4 years now.
I bought it early on, and it seemed promising at the time. There are good bones to this game and all it needs is to be fleshed out and refined.

However, the developer went AWOL a couple years ago, and then released a couple small patches, then disappeared again, and then yet again - 1 year ago - stated the game was back in active development.

Well guess what? That post stating the game was being working on again was the last thing we have ever heard from the dev. Nearly another year has gone by and there has not been a single update of any kind.

I think it's fair to say that this game is abandoned. Until the dev actually shows their face and responds to their community, I don't know what other conclusion anyone could come up with.

As for the game is it is today, is it worth it?

No.

It has a lot of honest potential but the developer has not, in 4 years, gotten it to a point where it could be considered anywhere close to done, and worth the asking price.

If there is a response from the dev, and more work is put in to actually flesh out and complete the game, then I may change this review, but for now - consider this abandoned. Do not spend your money on it.

Wow!

I was not expecting this game to be very good based on the info available before launch

But I was wrong! This game is very polished for an early access game, and it has a lot of content available right now.

Do you like:

Open World games
survival mechanics
crafting
building
capturing monsters
building a base
using captured monsters to do labor in your base

Palworld has it all - and it's not surface level either. There is a decent amount of depths to the gameplay systems.

I highly recommend this to anyone who likes crafting/survival/exploration. As it is right now, it's worth the purchase. I just played 7 hours straight and am going to be right back at it when I wake up tomorrow. Super addictive!!!!

I played Star Ocean 2 back on the PS1 as a kid and loved it - even with all the jank and complicated systems.

There is a reason this is considered by many to be the best game in the series. The story, setting, combat, music, and gameplay systems all combine to form a really wonderful game.

And this remake is *stunning*. I can't even describe how much of a glow up the graphics are. They breathe new life into this already great game. And the gameplay has been improved with new systems in place for battles. The soundtrack has been re-done by the original composer.

If you are looking for a great, classic, sorta old school RPG then look no more because you have found it. The love and care put into this remake is abundantly clear at every turn, and I applaud Square for going the extra mile to make this game shine.

Voice acting is still cheesy AF and charming in a way, but you can turn it off if you don't like it.

Character recruitment is still sorta complex so I recommend looking up a guide, because you can only have 8 people total in your party at the end, and the choices you have to get to 8 are winding paths the require specific actions to be taken.

But yeah, this is the real deal. One of the best games of 2023 and highly recommended if you are looking for an RPG with a nice Sci-Fi twist to it. 9/10 - Now please remake Star Ocean 3 !!!