Monster Harvest Does Things Good, but not Great

I’ve been looking forward to playing Monster Harvest for a long time now – a game that molds the concepts of Pokémon with Stardew Valley / Harvest Moon? Sign me up! And while I’ve enjoyed my time with the game – as short as it was, surprisingly – I can’t help but feel that I came out of the whole experience a tad disappointed in what was offered. Is Monster Harvest Worth it? Let’s take a look.

It is your typical farming simulation opening sequence. You live in the city, life is getting boring, you can get some free property in the country, and so you move. You’ll be taking over your uncles farming duties, and unlike other titles, no…your uncle is not dead. Instead, he is focusing his time on the research into Planimals – small monsters that can be obtained from your own crops by using slime, who will fight for you on your adventures, Pokémon style.

And your life begins. You’ll quickly learn about farming the land, building items, collecting resources, and more. The town has a few key buildings you’ll need like a General Store, smithy, clinic, and more. The bulletin board in town functions very similar to the community centre in Stardew Valley, one of the carryovers from that title that I really enjoyed here.

And so your time begins to pass. You’ll grow more and more crops to earn money, which will be needed for a variety of purposes, including unlocking new areas of the map to explore. You will also compelte tasks for folks around town, tend to a growing roster of plants and Planimals, and so much more. When you examine the game on a day-to-day farming experience, it’s rather solid and quite fun.

But that can wear thin after a while, and sometimes the secondary game play elements just don’t live up to the hype. Collecting Planimals is fun, but I never felt a connection between my little monsters and myself, like I would in a Pokémon game. The battles, as well, are uninspired. Additional moves for your monsters are locked behind levels, and with many of my monsters dying before ever obtaining the necessary levels, I never got to see what they could do. When I finally did obtain new moves, they were often disappointing.

Still, Monster Harvest has a lot of redeemable qualities. Again, the farming mechanics are strong, as is the steady progression of building up your farm. The areas are beautiful to look at, with a decent background score and ambience to help set the mood. If you are looking for something different, than hop into this one and see what it’s all about. If you are happy with other farming simulation titles, you can probably pass on this one.