Fields of Mistria Preview: Ode to Bountiful Harvests Prior (PC)

Tucked away in a rural forest not too far from the capital city lies the beautiful and historical town of Mistria. As a recruited veteran of errand-running and boot-licking, you are tasked with the insurmountable responsibility of reviving this town to its full potential. With the help of a colorful cast of townies, your wiles of all things farming simulator, and a little bit of mystery magic from the dragon statue on your lawn, your new adventure in Fields of Mistria is about to begin. 

NPC’s Studios Fields of Mistria offers a familiar but improved experience with the classic farming simulator. Most popular around comfort-weather fall, Fields of Mistria was released as an early access title, but still offers a full year’s worth of content. Although it sounds like it’d be a short experience, there is plenty to accomplish in the game with the year allowing access to farming a full season’s worth of crops, a mine with many levels to dig through, plenty of collectibles for the museum, and numerous errands to complete for the townsfolk. Although affection for the villagers can only be maxed at a few hearts, there are still plenty of unique interactions and scenes you can experience to get to know them better. 

Fields of Mistria can only be downloaded via Steam, starting at $13.99. Since the game is in early access, it will continue to be updated until the full release, though the date has not been finalized yet. 

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Field of Mistria and the Broken Bridge to the Capitol

Story – Renovate and Revitalize 

Fields of Mistria follows the classic storyline of the player being an outsider coming in to help with the town’s reconstruction following an earthquake. Left in disarray, paths have been blocked, the bridge connecting the town to the capitol has collapsed, and the current businesses are struggling in the aftermath. You’re tasked with fixing these large orders to restore the town while growing closer with the townsfolk who are mostly warm and inviting. 

For a game that hasn’t been completed yet, there is still a lot to uncover between the backstories of the characters and the overarching story of restoring the town. The pacing for unlocking tasks around town such as mining, collecting items for the museum, and expanding the map is slower than other farming simulators. But I’ve found that the tutorials, disguised as natural story progression, allow the player to become more accustomed to the game which can be helpful for beginners and experts alike. If you’re a beginner, this is the perfect way to start, while not being overwhelmed by all that you can and have to do in a day’s work. And yet, for experts, you may find yourself working ahead of the game, but you’re given all the tools you need and there’s nothing locked behind an invisible plot wall. 

Gameplay – New Spin on a Classic

Fields of Mistria is a very familiar dance with a different tune. There’s not much that is new in the game that you can’t find in any other farming simulator, but it does have unique elements added to it. Over the first month, players can unlock farming, mining, and fishing, and even the laxest of players can easily tackle some of the large projects the townsfolk set out for them. What’s unique is that Fields of Mistria introduces magic to the character so not only does the player keep an eye on their health and stamina, but also mana so they can use spells to make their lives easier around the farm. This can involve summoning weather, restoring health and stamina, and even helping out with farming so crops within a certain grid are watered. 

Along with learning magic, Fields of Mistria also introduces their version of an evolvable skill tree through Caldarus. A stone dragon can be uncovered on your farm and after a day’s rest, reveals themself to the player as a creature that has watched over Mistria for centuries. The player can not only speak to Caldarus as an additional character but use the experience gained through everyday actions of chopping wood and breaking rocks to level up their talents such as Chopping, Cooking, Artifacts, and more. Experience can be gained in more ways and the talents that unlock offer additional boons to make the player’s experience in the game easier or expanded. 

Field of Mistria’s Evolvable Skill Tree

And while there are many familiar gameplay aspects in Fields of Mistria that you see in every farming simulator, what makes it stand above the rest is the quality of life fixes it brings along with its development. The skill tree, conservative use of stamina, and the cycling of seasons are common through many popular farming simulators, but Fields of Mistria shines through its utilization of small fixes and implements you can find throughout the game. Just a few that stand out in my mind are keys for interacting with or gifting items to other townsfolk, retrieving seeds from being planted, and recovering stamina through Soup of the Day and spells. There are so many tiny fixes in Fields of Mistria that I’ve always found troublesome or irritating in other games such as Stardew Valley that I’ve never had to worry about in Fields of Mistria. While things such as stamina recovery are attainable through Stardew Valley, they take a long time to get to unless certain mods are enabled. 

Fields of Mistria introduces a lot of quality-of-life fixes from the get-go, having seemingly learned from past games but it isn’t without its faults. Something I think would greatly improve the game is if it had event notifications for major and minor events happening around the map. Stardew Valley will often block off portions of its map and let the player know in a notification when an event is occurring and where to find it. Thus far, Fields of Mistria will let the player know ahead of time that an event is occurring such as Saturday Market but will not let them know during that time of the day when it has begun. It’s such a minor detail that this may sound like a nitpick, but as a player who gets very easily distracted with tasks in the day, I’ve more than once missed Friday night hangouts at the Inn. It’s not a festival or something you’re missing out on, but it is still a slew of interactions that I enjoy and try to participate in. Having a quick notice in the corner to let you know that the hangout has begun will let players know to begin heading to the Inn so they don’t miss out on when the town does get together for events such as this. 

Field of Mistria’s Friday Night at the Sleeping Dragon Inn

There have also been some control issues with the tools. Whenever I started the game, the mouse wheel would scroll inverted for the bottom row of tools. In games such as Minecraft and Stardew Valley, whenever you scrolled down, the selected tool would rotate to the right, but the way the mouse wheel was set originally would rotate the tools to the left. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but there are also issues with the tools and selecting certain crops when watering, planting, and digging because sometimes you can’t detect where the spot will be as clearly as you would in a square space such as Minecraft. This feels like another nitpick and isn’t anything that can’t be fixed later down the line by either getting a better feel for the game or by getting highlighted boxes whenever the tool is in use. 

Another aspect of the game that can be improved on is the amount of weeds and trees that show up on the farm. Normally, the rate at which weeds and grass can grow back spans over a few days before you see the reappearance of debris in games like Stardew Valley or even Rune Factory. But the weeds can begin growing back in spades over just a day in Fields of Mistria, ruining your attempts at a clean field. And while it’s nice that trees can grow back, I also like having control over where they grow so you can have an area of the farm for tapping or chopping trees whenever you need wood. Slowing down the rate at which debris grows back on your farm would make cleaning and maintaining it a lot easier as well as less aggravating when the grass takes over and ruins what may have taken in-game hours of work. 

Audio/Graphics – Peaceful Sense of Nostalgia and the Selling Point

One of the major selling points for Fields of Mistria that struck cozy gamers everywhere was its unique aesthetic of styling their characters in early 90s anime style. With large sparkly eyes and soft pastels combined with pixel art has rejuvenated the excitement over a game in the same vein as Stardew Valley all over again. The characters and town’s design are all beautifully created, even though the town starts off in shambles from the earthquake. There is also a range of diversity among the characters that promote a wide range of skin tones and body types that is very refreshing to see in a modern game. Characters will also switch outfits depending on the season and occasionally when visiting the beach. There is so much to see and experience in the game despite only having a year’s worth of content fledged out. 

The game also has some quaint and upbeat music in the background that never feels repetitive or boring. There aren’t any voices for the characters, but there are different depths and tones to their text appearing on screen that stand in for a voice, very much like Undertale. There are also a lot of satisfying sounds between the different thumps in our footsteps when walking on dirt, stone, and wood bridges as well as the town’s bell going off once it gets to certain hours of the day.