Sun Haven
Game Title: Sun Haven
Released: March 10, 2023
Game Length: N/A
Grade: A-
System
Controls: The first thing to address is whether or not you should use a controller. The game has this weird system where moving the left analog stick "snaps" to any interactable button or the right analog stick slowly moves it across the screen. The slow rate it moves cannot be adjusted. Things get weirder when you are trying to target something. While it generally highlights things in front of you, there is generally a chance it will be lower on the screen. This doesn't hinder you when it comes to decorating, but it is harder trying to take things down that are out of reach or easily place things around you without utilizing the mouse. They have been toying with the control schemes for awhile but haven't quite found a good compromise when it comes to things like spells. They have been getting better at fixing issues like not being able to click through the dialogue options, but there are still times you'll occasionally have to click on a given option to exit the window. I found it best using the controller when out exploring and the mouse when decorating.
Time: The standard amount of real time a day lasts is 20 minutes. The only thing that stops the clock are all inside the pause interface, such as looking at maps, distributing your traits, or checking your stats. This means that the day continues while you are talking to people, sorting through storage, and interacting with the crafting station. This doesn't really give you much time to do what needs to be done during the day. You can adjust the time between 15 and 40 minutes to slow down the clock. You can also check the option to pause during dialogue. Unfortunately, everything begins to shut down at 8pm. Night will fall, certain travel routes will be disabled, the music will change (if the record player is off) and go silent at 11pm, and the numbers on the clock will glow red and bounce around. If you do not make it to bed by 12am, you'll be stuck with a surprise hospital bill. Thankfully, the game places you at home and saves upon exiting the game. There is also a back-up file created upon going to sleep.
Gameplay
Towns: This might come at a shock but there are three residential areas to explore with lots of features in addition to all the combative areas between them. They each have their own list of characters, task boards, farms, mines, and stores. Much about these towns are hinted at early with their main characters appearing at festivals, the carnival obviously shown behind the firework show, and the collection items at the museum. Sun Haven will be your first and main town. Most of the features will be available to you at the start with a few that will require certain material to build. It contains the museum that collects items, the record store that provides you with music that can override music on your farm, and the fishing store that offers licenses to upgrade your fishing abilities and number of nets you can have. Advancing to the other locations will essentially require you to complete the main story. Deciding how much of the main story you want to do will depend entirely on you as they each have their own form of currency. It wouldn't hurt to push into Nel'Vari for a chance at a bigger house. Also, donating 20 of their currency to the museum will provide you two Mana Infusers that you can place on your farm and convert whatever leftover amount you may have at the end of the day. Withergate is the third town you'll visit and probably the least developed. There probably wasn't enough in their kickstarter budget to give you a bigger apartment. I didn't quite like how they suddenly increased the amount of tickets required in a recent patch either. If you do manage to get this far in the game, there will be a prompt at the end to defeat the final boss and/or donate items to a secondary museum. Beyond all the fun rewards you can get from the locales, both extensions will only offer you cosmetic additions to crafting stations and food. There will not be anything new you can develop from their resources. The material from their mines will provide you reagents for enchanted and enhanced "half-step" upgrades for your tools you develop at home. Obtaining one or two more points isn't worth the effort.
People: There are a lot of characters out there you can have daily conversations with. You can build hearts with any of them but not all of them are part of the relationship system. Conversing with people can turn into some sort of interview test. You can't simply speak to them to increase their value. You will decrease your relationship if you don't agree with their standing on topics. So always agree no matter what. If the business tycoon brags about how much money they have, flatter them. If an older fellow goes on about how it is wise to discipline the young, tell them they are doing a great job. Telling Lucia that she should go on vacation actually made her angry. Check out their house for hints on what to gift them. After awhile, they will give you a keepsake. If you lose it, you can buy another one in town square. There is also a whole sub-category on the romance system where you can date each one twice, marry them, have them extend a room to your tier 3 house, provide you a keepsake ring, and options to divorce them. While currently they do not do anything after the big day, the developers want to expand this system.
Seasons: Many things can happen between the seasons and it's important to find out about some of these things early. There are a list of events and festivals that you will be reminded either by courier, a quest that is automatically given the day before, or on the task board. It would be wise to have enough money and bring your seasonal tokens to buy exclusive rewards. There are also snaccoons that block certain passages. Make sure you have the right requirements to clear the way and receive a plushie version to put in your house. Summer had me restrained from entering the mines when I didn't have 4 iron bars on me and I didn't feel like spending 2,000g at the vendor. Make sure to pay attention to the seasonal crops so they don't wither and die. It might be cheating, but you can dig up the seeds before the season ends. For the next three things, there are options to turn them off if they bother you too much. In Spring and Summer, you'll encounter seasonal bosses that will disrupt your farm for a week unless you fulfill their challenges and reward you with a pet version of themselves. You'll also have to place up scarecrows to prevent the creatures from stealing your crops and attend to the weather like using your axe against thorns or breaking open ice.
Skills: Sun Haven has developed these long and extensive skills lists that generally provide you with minor bonuses to help you along. There are some major game changers that you should focus on. Air Skip in the Exploration Tree will definitely make it easier to get around. Because you'll be needing wood and cloth for almost everything, Wood Splitter and Silk Saver are great savers. For farming, Earthquake and Rain Cloud will definitely help things go quicker. If you manage to snag Expensive Yield early, it will definitely help when it comes to assisting the other farms. Mining has a couple of nice bonuses like Stone Splitter and Rich Deposits. The spell Vacuumulus is extremely helpful. Crushing Blow can be fun as well. For fishing, First Catch of the Day is highly underrated with the potential of giving 800 gold or 30 tickets from a single catch. Bubble Net is an awesome ability that bypasses those more ruthless fish. While the skills I listed might be some of the better ones, there are plenty that certainly have their perks in the game. You can barter community tokens or check the crafting station daily for a randomized requirement of supplies for skill potions.
Cosmetics
Decorations: When it comes to decorations, there is a lot. You'll be able to craft your own, obtain exclusive decorations from any of the three town general store display cases, buy really expensive gold items from your local entrepreneur, barter seasonal tokens at the seasonal shops, plushies from feeding snaccoons, occasionally rewarded them through fulfilling quests from the task board, contributing to the museum, winning rewards in the combat arena, and attending festivals. Other than wallpaper or wall-mounted items, you can place any decoration inside your house or on your farm. You can remove any decoration by selecting your pickaxe and clicking on the item. When it comes to picking up animals, all you need to do is have an open slot in your inventory and double click them. While you may have three areas to place items, you can only upgrade and place barns within Sun Haven. Placing two fence poles next to each other will have them automatically connect. There are a list of nice interactable objects like wardrobes that will pull all clothes out of your inventory and refrigerators that will take all food items. Chests can be color-coded and named for better organization. Only certain things like chairs and benches can be rotated while things like beds cannot.
Pets & Mounts: They might be expensive, but there is no way you can resist the cuteness of all the pets in the game. They recently added different color variants. Make sure to buy a leash in order to hook them to your side and move them around. There is no downside to have one with you at all times and there are skills that improve your speed with a pet as well as on a mount. Although mounts are generally more expensive to obtain, one of the easier ones to obtain is the skateboard in Nel'Vari Mount Store. You must have the summoning whistle on you to call and dismiss it.
Wardrobe: If buying any of the things above doesn't drain your gold, you can visit any of the clothing stores to dress yourself up rather nicely. They will provide you different variations of hats, shirts, and pants. Nel'Vari has a Cape Store and Withergate divides their supply between the tailor and hat stores. Sun Haven has also one additional feature that might appeal to those who want to change their race: the Salon. So if you ever felt your character creation was a mistake or wanted to change your perk, you can totally change into something else like a fairy or elemental. There are also a long range of transformation potions that turns you completely into another person, object, or creature. These can be obtained by bartering community tokens at Town Hall, either potion stall in the other towns, or tickets to the visitor that appears to the eastern side of your farm the 25th of every month.
Miscellaneous
Issues: Other than the problems listed above, there were a lot of subtle problems. Some things like how capes were clipping through long hair were addressed. Others like how fish don't disappear after being trapped in a bubble if your inventory is full. I noticed health bars glitching on rocks if you hit them after using a skill. The maps for the other towns were originally lined up in two columns before they made them like Sun Haven. I managed to break the seasonal bosses several times and broke the cooking pot when I interacted with it before obtaining the quest. One of the biggest glitches was how couches placed vertically would still maintain their presence even after putting them in your inventory. Many loved using this exploit to earn gold easily. The other problem was how progression is made through mining. Much of the game is locked off until you can obtain better equipment to break apart the advanced trees and stone. After my first year, balancing activities between the farms became intolerable without doubling the amount of time you have in a day through the options menu. I was slightly disappointed there weren't more items you could make through the crafting stations from the other towns, but the auxiliary crafting stations you can make at Sun Haven do take dropped reagents from all enemies.
Other: It's almost impossible to touch on all the systems in the game, but there are some I like to highlight here. Nel'Vari farms will have critters that spawn and drop items for you when you plant specific kinds of seeds. Withergate has maybe a dozen mini-games where you convert purple tickets into red ones for more rewards. Quests will generally require you to travel between characters twice about a matter. You can increase the maximum number of health and mana by eating food. There are diminishing returns the more you eat the same kind of food. While you can put animals inside the barn, you can very well feed them outside as well. Placing flowers around a bee hive will have it spawn a specific kind of honey and do not need to be kept watered. They added small cosmetic DLC packs and a weird tech game for their combat system. They have added an End of Day screen with a summary of the rewards you received. If you are low on heavy stone, you can head east to the entrance of the mine to "the quarry" where stones respawn every time you enter the area.
Summary
Review: This game is more than a simple farming simulator. There is a long list of activities and decorations to keep you entertained. The number of different kinds of races, clothes, transformation potions, and pets build on the multiplayer aspect of the game. The story is decently built and the dialogue choices makes sure you are paying attention to what people are saying. The combat system might be a bit rudimentary, but the magic additions help mix things up. The long list of creative skills that help make things easier on the farm and the number of areas that collect things will provide you the drive to keep playing. The biggest surprise of them all was discovering how there are two more locations with their own list of things built directly into the base game. It is hard to imagine the development process they had to endure with releases like the museum coming right when the game launched. If all the technical limitations were addressed and the progression of the game smoothed over, this would definitely be considered one of the better games to try out. Still, you can't go wrong with the amount of content inside a $25 game.
5-21-2023