When Marvelous revealed Farmagia during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, we saw a familiar concept wrapped up in an intriguing package: an action RPG with farm sim elements, like those that are so fundamental to the publisher’s two biggest series, Rune Factory and Story of Seasons. but wrapped in a monster capture package. Instead of growing fruits or vegetables, you grow monster crops. And it gives shape to all of that Fairy Tail and Edens Zero distinctive artwork by creator Hiro Mashima.
In this new RPG, we follow Ten and his friends who are all Farmagia — magical tamers (or agricultural mages) who can control and fight monsters. Caught in the middle of a war, Ten and his friends use the power of monsters – and friendship – to overcome all obstacles.
The game is divided into 2D and 3D parts. The former is common for dialogue between characters and visiting places such as the Magic Shop or Avrion Castle in the capital, Centvelt. 3D environments are reserved for the farm or labyrinths (dungeons), where you control one of your characters.
On the farm, you breed and raise your monsters to prepare them to explore the dungeon. You have a limited number of stamina points that you can use to farm per day, but when you use them up, it’s not enough to end the day and get a good night’s sleep. In Farmagia, stamina can only be restored after completing the maze. By so rigidly linking farming to action and dungeon crawling, Farmagia never allowed us to fully immerse ourselves in farming as the rhythm was disrupted, forcing us to spend at least 15 minutes in the dungeon to continue working on our crops.
The fact that farming is one of the most boring parts of the game doesn’t help either. The place lacks life, even with mature crops of monsters waiting for us. It’s literally a piece of land completely decontextualized from the rest of the game world that we have to visit semi-regularly to evolve our monsters.
While it takes a swing, and a miss, with farming, Farmagia really hits the spot with the more traditional fantasy elements of the RPG genre. All the good stuff from famous fantasy stories, like forbidden magic spells to battles against divine forces, are also present and accurate. Doses of knowledge dumping and explanations of the main story, although always accompanied by overdramatic expressions such as the Law of Repetition or the Harvest Festival, are also served in just the right amount. The writers also know good comic timing, cracking jokes at just the right moments to lighten things up. This may be far from the dangers that come with experimentation, but it’s all very charming, just like our favorite anime series.
In terms of structure, the story is divided into 12 chapters, each chapter connecting the events of the main story with one or more characters. It doesn’t take long to realize that one of Ten’s friends will be at the center of the chapter and while the group tries to solve the main crisis related to the war, they will also solve the problem of their beloved companion. The predictability of the story can make the experience less exciting, but by intertwining plot progression with character development, Farmagia creates a fun and cohesive narrative experience, and it’s a wonderful take on the formula of the power of friendship.
Another aspect that makes Farmagia a charming experience is the visual appearance. The game looks great whether played in handheld or docked mode. The static backgrounds in the dialogue sequences are beautifully colored, helping us understand the fantasy world in which the protagonists live. And, along with the fine art, those parts look great. Mashima’s character designs fit certain anime archetypes perfectly. Ten, for example, is a cheerful gang leader who is enthusiastic about helping people. On the other hand, Emeru is a nervous boy whose angry look actually hides a soft heart. Importantly, each character design in the game is unique, just like those in Mashima’s manga.
However, when it comes to monsters, there is less variety, which is disappointing considering how central they are to the game. Mashima relies on changing colors or adding a few new visual details to show the creatures getting stronger. Because of this, you’ll end up fighting a huge number of giant seahorses that turn from blue to purple and eventually start wearing crowns and hats. The 3D environments also suffer from this repetition, with dungeons especially feeling generic.
These short dungeons are where most of Farmagia’s action takes place. They’re pretty roguelike, as each maze has a predetermined layout that gives you a chance to find random upgrades for your monsters. While the latter allows for some experimentation and monster team building, the former isn’t the strongest aspect of the game, as the maze designs follow a shallow pool of patterns, with few common areas where several waves of enemies spawn.
While fighting those enemies, you can’t overshadow how shallow the combat and character power progression is. In Farmagia, monsters are the equivalent of weapons and skills. There are only twelve monsters we can equip and, aside from their color and some having the ability to inflict debuffs, it’s hard to understand their strengths and weaknesses in battle. Of course, we can use other monsters, but only as a skill for twelve. We can’t have a small army of great dragons behind us.
However, don’t expect a complex combat system when you brave that small army of monsters. In Farmagia, you don’t perform flashy combos or test your skills with a specific character. All battles come down to parrying time to charge Fusion Buddy – an overpowering summon-like attack you unlock and upgrade by deepening your relationship with elemental spirits – and keeping your monsters uptime using United form skills. It’s simple, but it works. What impressed us most about the combat is that it makes fights where forty to sixty of our monsters shoot projectiles and attack fairly large creatures, like dragons and chimeras, a smooth experience. We had no performance issues when playing on the dock or handheld.
In the end, while Farmagia comes with all the conventions of the fantasy action RPG genre that you might expect, the game absolutely excels at delivering those features. This collaboration between the studio and Hiro Mashima produces a fun, heartwarming, good vs. evil experience that made us feel like we were experiencing a fun, light anime.
Conclusion
Farmagia offers a fun and solid experience for fans of the fantasy genre. With great art and fun dialogue, this game is perfect for those who crave a magical adventure. While not necessarily a great farming game, Farmagia works well as a bridge for players who would like to try their hand at an action-oriented adventure. On the other hand, seasoned players of action RPGs might feel frustrated by how easy Farmagia’s combat is. However, we believe that the positive aspects of the game make Farmagia a great example that, when done right, even it just looks fantastic.
