Like so many other cozy game fans, I’ve sunk an ungodly number of hours in Stardew Valley (this still, however, pales in comparison to the time my wife has spent playing it). After a decade of dabbling in copycats and spiritual successors, it takes something truly special to give me the itch to start a brand new farm and meet all new villagers over revisiting what I already know. After all, cozy is another word for comfortable, and what better way to embody the spirit of cozy games than replaying one you’re comfortable with?
After playing Fields of Mistria 1.0 for a few hours, I may never go back.
Fields of Mistria
$13.99 All it takes is one full day in Fields of Mistria to realize that it doesn’t shake the traditional farming simulator formula up too much. You’ll move onto an abandoned farm in a charming town, meet and charm the locals (1.0 finally allows you to marry townspeople), and explore the mysterious mines all while growing and selling produce from season to season. You’ll even be shocked to learn that there’s a museum in town that will accept any bugs, fish or buried treasure you find off of your hands. All of the activities you’re engaging with—fishing, mining, farming and combat, among others—feature deep progression trees that streamline and simplify the actual work of running a farm so you can focus on progressing the story and maximizing your output. It’s well-tread ground at this point, but Fields of Mistria excels in that it does everything Stardew Valley does, but better.
It’s almost reductive to call Fields of Mistria “Stardew Valley, but better”, but that captures exactly why I’ve fallen in love with it so quickly. Every feature, system and mechanic feels as though it was designed in response to a pain point someone felt in Stardew Valley’s core gameplay loop. Your inventory extends all the way into the town, meaning you don’t have to lug stacks of materials to vendors. The map reveals where every villager is at all times, so you don’t need to memorize everyone’s unique routines (sorry, fans of spreadsheets), and overall, the story beats integrate much more nicely into the gameplay instead of interrupting you randomly. I’d even argue the characters are better developed and more interesting. Fields of Mistria might actually be the most polished version of one of these games I’ve ever played.
But it isn’t just “the most polished farming sim” either. Fields of Mistria also has a staggering amount of unlockable, craftable and cookable recipes and what appears to be a lot of story and combat progression. It would be overwhelming to keep up the amount of content available in 1.0 were it not for some of those design choices. I feel like the deeper I get into Fields of Mistria, the more of an impression it will leave on me as a result.
