I enjoy me a good farming game, having put more than my share of time into the likes of Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley over the years.I'm always on the lookout for new such games to try out, For a bit now, I've had my eye on a potential newcomer to the genre, Moonfrost. I thought it looked right up my alley, and now that I've had an opportunity to give it a go, I've got some thoughts on it that I'd like to share.
Story
In Moonfrost, we awaken in a forest with no direction other than to try and help the world. After coming across an abandoned farm, we get learn a bit about the state of the world; after the appearance of a second moon, the world became ravaged by storms of meteors called Moonfrost. Despite the destruction caused by the meteorites, some people have learned to harness them to create all sorts of things, and those people are known as Frost Hunters. The game sees us become a Frost Hunter in a destroyed village and work to help rebuild.
Visuals and Music
Moonfrost is a beautiful game. The isometric perspective of it brings me back to the N64 era of Harvest Moon games, but the overall aesthetic is quite pretty in its own right and I found it very appealing and consistent. The game's score is very fitting as well, fairly relaxing and with enough variation to keep it from being boring.
Gameplay
Moonfrost is definitely not lacking in things to do. I won't go into a ton of detail here, since I don't want to give too much away, but even so there's still plenty to say about the game.
Farming and Gathering
As with any farming game, there's a multitude of different crops to grow, and all kinds of materials to gather, like stone, various plants, ore, wood, and more. There's also plenty of fish to catch. Farming is fairly straightforward. You till the soil, plant the seeds, water them, and wait for them to grow. Unlike a lot of games in the genre, the time they take to grow is a certain amount of time after they're planted, rather than a certain amount of in-game days. Early on your tools are fairly weak, and you can only harvest a single crop at a time, but as you progress you'll gain tools that can get you higher yields, do more at once, and even get to a point of being able to vacuum up an entire field's harvest all at once!
Getting your hands on new items aside from crops can involve using your tools to gather various things around the world, buying them from shops, or going fishing. Materials, crops, and crafted items can be turned into the Frost Hunter Association in exchange for money (though not freely, instead they will request specific items to trade for either money or Moonfrost shards), or used in various crafting or cooking recipes. They can also be used for building, which I'll talk about in a moment. Some things I do wish were a bit easier to find early on, but overall I found the balance good.
Crafting and Building
A huge part of the game is the building system. There's all sorts of furniture you can make out of Moonfrost and various materials, and walls, floors, windows, stairs, etc. can be built more or less freely. As a result of this, your house can be truly your own, rather than the standardized one your average farming sim will give you.
The crafting is mostly straightforward; you use the corresponding materials to make things, which may sometimes take a bit of time. For furniture items and crafting stations, if you're crafting an item for the first time, you have to do a minigame that involves trying to re-create a picture of the thing being crafted. If you do well, you won't use as many materials. I found the minigame a bit charming at first, but after making a few items I did start to find it a bit tedious, though at the very least it only needs to be done once per item.
Quests and Characters
The game's story primarily advances through quests, which can task you with various different things such as getting or crafting certain items, repairing things around town, exploring areas, and more. They'll often reward you with the ability to craft or buy new things, or with access to new places, so they're definitely not something to ignore.
As with most farming games, a huge part of the game is getting to know various townsfolk. You can do this by talking to them or giving them gifts, and as you get close enough you'll even have opportunities to romance various characters (though romance isn't in the game at launch and will be added a bit later on). I haven't quite met everyone yet, but I did find the characters I have met to have plenty of charm to them and look forward to encountering even more as I go.
I've really only just scratched the surface here, but just wanted to give a quick overview so there's plenty of opportunity to experience things for yourself.
Conclusion
I had a really great time with Moonfrost. While there were some small things, like the crafting minigame, that I could have done without, overall I had a lot of fun, and I imagine I'll continue to play plenty more of it in the future. If you have any sort of interest in farming/crafting sims, I absolutely insist that you not sleep on this one. It's a very promising contender in the genre, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing its story conclude in future updates.
VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on PC
Review Copy was Provided
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