// PC GAMER — GAMING
Fields of Mistria review
A fresh face for farm sims that brings the magic back with the best-written cast I've seen from the genre.
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In most farm sims, talking to my neighbors is just another chore. Water the strawberries, pet the cows, chat with the rancher next door, who says "Nothing like a cold glass of milk to start my day!" which is the same thing she said two days ago and will say again two days from now. In Fields of Mistria, my neighbors are the reason I get out of bed in the morning.
What is it? A '90s anime-inspired farm simExpect to pay: $14 / £11.79Developer: NPC StudioPublisher: NPC StudioReviewed on: Intel Core Ultra 7 265, RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB RAMMultiplayer: NoSteam Deck: VerifiedLink: Official site
But first, the farm sim throat clearing: Is Fields of Mistria like Stardew Valley? Yes. You play as a budding farmer new to a rural town where you'll befriend the residents and sell your stacks of cucumbers to fund revitalization of the floundering community. It's the fate of any farm sim in the past decade to get compared to Stardew, which diehards find reductive (yes I grew up with Harvest Moon too), but we can all admit it's the easiest shared reference.
In Fields of Mistria I clear my overgrown farm of trees and rocks, decorate my property over several years, grow seasonal crops, buy and breed animals, fish, forage, donate one of every item to the local museum, pass out at 2 am outside my house because I just needed to run one more errand, collect ores and fight monsters in a mine outside town, unlock passive skills, deliver resources for quests, give gifts to villagers, cook food, *deep breath* and eventually get married and have a baby with the hot local single of my choice after fulfilling a main quest to repair the town where everyone lives happily ever after.
So yeah, It's like Stardew Valley. Also it's adorably pink and inspired by '90s anime. It nails all those farm simming essentials but the thing that truly transforms it from main character to magical is its unexpectedly great writing.
I don't go into farm sims looking for good writing. Does anyone? The whole genre leans on character archetypes harder than a Hallmark romcom. Mistria doesn't buck the tradition of cute and corny characters: buff rancher Hayden is boisterous and friendly, travelling salesman Balor is handsome and flirtatious, and young town leader Adeline is eagerly detail-oriented. It trades in the same tropes and yet it's the best-written farm sim I've ever played.
Mistria isn't "well written" like a satire with sharp lines I can point to as superiorly clever. It's just earnestly great in a way you can almost miss if you get distracted by puns and the family-friendly tone. It's like realizing that, wait, Avatar: The Last Airbender was surprisingly insightful despite being a TV-Y7 kids show.
Partly, it's a volume thing. There's just so much dialogue in Fields of Mistria. In other farm sims, you start to hear characters repeating the same lines of daily chatter pretty fast and they'll say "Wow, I love this. Thanks!" whether you're giving them a flower or a chunk of gold. It's the specificity of lines that really sells each character.