I don't know why I'm surprised that the rice game is all about rice

I started playing Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin! I am only like... A year and a half in, but I'm having fun! I was expecting it to be like Rune Factory; you build a farm, you make friends, you go out and gather resources. It was... Not actually that!

Sakuna, the noble daughter of a war god and a harvest goddess, is shocked – SHOCKED – to discover that actions have consequences. She gets banished to an island with a tiny group of humans, with two missions: kick all of the demons off that island, and build up enough of a farm that they don't all starve to death while she does it. Sakuna hates everything about this plan, unsurprisingly.

So yes, it's got a farm and some exploration and some fighting and some relationship building like Rune Factory does, but I didn't expect how much it was going to dig into the process of growing rice. Like, consider Harvest Moon and Rune Factory and Stardew Valley and the Sims: you plant your crops, you water them, you come back in a few days and you either have food or dead plants. In this? No. You have to monitor the nutrient level of your soil. You have to maintain the water level of your rice paddy so that your plants don't get too much or too little. The "find frogs and spiders" mini-game gives you predators to eat the pests that might ruin your crops. You have to preserve the food you find in exploration missions to keep you going until your rice actually gives enough of a yield to live on.

Like, yes Sakuna's combat stats are directly connected to how well you do at farming, but that's not the reason why I fuss at the fertiliser and level of weeds. I fuss because fussing gives you skills that make you better at fussing! Like weeding faster or actually getting a grid overlay to tell you how wonkily you've planted your rice. It feels organic and I'm into it! I just... Wasn't anticipating how much work would go into the actual mechanics of farming. I feel like that aspect might be something forestofglory would like at least a let's play of – it's got very cozy fantasy vibes, despite the monsters, and it obviously goes in on the mechanics of feeding people in this fantasy world. Although the farming difficulty and the combat difficulty are separate toggles, so maybe it's more accessible than I think!

I think my favourite thing is that everyone can sit down to eat together, and they'll actually talk. Like, I thought the human group were a family and it turns out no! Ragtag band of survivors who got busted trying to steal food in a famine/war/combination famine-war. I don't know how I feel about the characters yet; Tauemon is a samurai turned bandit turned farmer. Myrthe is a missionary, which means that she's a really smart character but I am full of side-eye towards her. Kinta hates everyone equally, Yui hates everyone who isn't Kinta equally and ( [SPOILER] )

, the baby finds dogs and thus is the second best member of this team, and the dog lets me put everyone else to work, which makes it the best member of my team. The setting seems to be Definitely Not Fantasy Japan (and Mythre is from Definitely Not The Netherlands), so I'm genuinely not sure where any of this is going to go or what my time limit is. I guess just keep flailing away at my fields until the game says that we're not starving to death anymore? That would be nice.

... Anyway so this is a game that I struggle not to play in like eight hour bursts, so I'm gonna. Go do that. Maybe not for eight hours, but I've got a field to till so MAYBE IT WILL BE. D: