Fields of Mistria Review - The Next Best Cozy Farming Sim

In a world of oversaturated farming sim games, Fields of Mistria stands out like a light at the end of a tunnel. With beautiful art, incredible writing, and near-perfect mechanics, Fields of Mistria feels like a classic in the making. 

In the beginning, the player is recruited to work on a farm in Mistria for free. All they have to do is help build the town back up, which was wrecked after an earthquake. 

The gameplay mechanics are very similar to other farming sims – players farm, take care of animals, fish, mine, and build relationships. There’s also a bit of combat in Fields of Mistria, and increasing the town’s rank is necessary to progress part of the story. 

Fields of Mistria has a robust story to it. The land itself used to be full of magic, but it disappeared. Part of the player’s job is to rediscover magic, using the power of the dragons. Players can learn spells as they progress, setting it apart from your average farming sim. 

Fields of Mistria perfects the little things

While the gameplay loops are nothing too new, everything feels fantastic. The animations for watering, tilling, and sowing seeds are crystal clear and cute, and this idea applies to everything in the game. The animations of everything from walking to swimming are well done and stand out. Even the sounds accompanying all of these are really good. 

This attention to detail permeates through every other aspect of gameplay, too. The prices and requirements for quests and progressing the story are well-balanced, which is something that can be tricky. Fields of Mistria doesn’t feel too hard or too easy, instead striking a good balance of being challenging without being frustrating. 

Mistria itself is very much alive

Characters are another well-crafted part of Fields of Mistria. With a diverse cast of people in the town of Mistria, making them all stand out isn’t easy. However, they all do, and they all feel genuine at the same time. 

A large part of this is because of how they interact together and with the player. If two or more characters are standing together, then they’re going to be having a conversation you can listen to. The characters react to things the player does and will reference things other characters in the town have done, too. 

They’re so interconnected, and there’s an abundance of dialogue that never feels wasted. Everything each character says has weight to it, and I never saw reused dialogue. 

The characters never waste an opportunity to get together, either. One of my favorite parts of the game was getting together with everyone on Friday nights to celebrate the weekend. Every Friday, people would be paired up and doing something as a group, giving their relationships more meaning. While some characters were playing a tabletop RPG, others were drinking at the bar. Meanwhile, the trio of mischievous kids are up to no good around the corner.

Plus, these interactions change with the seasons. People start to do different things, like creating an art club or starting new campaigns in their TTRPG. They change their outfits, their hairstyles, and their habits to fit the world around them.

These little parts of Fields of Mistria went such a long way in building Mistria, and it’s something that no other farming simulator, cozy or not, has really pushed. 

The aesthetic of Fields of Mistria is the cherry on top

Fields of Mistria is gorgeous, there’s no doubt about it. It may be too cutesy for some folks on the surface, but it’s got more depth than that after the first thirty minutes of playtime. This applies to the characters themselves too, from their portraits to their actual sprites. 

Music in Mistria is another good point. It actually feels like you’re walking through an idyllic village in an RPG constantly, and it works well. Mistria has an undercurrent of magic and fantasy to it, and the music captures that well. The only problem I had with the music was that it would cut out randomly and then start again. This wasn’t a major problem, and an update right before the embargo seemed to fix the problem. 

Another problem that was seemingly fixed by the last-minute update was lagging problems. Occasionally, Fields of Mistria would slow down and also crashed once on me. Again, this problem never happened after the update, but it was present in the early hours of my experience. 

Overall, Fields of Mistria is one of the best farming sims in some time

Cozy farming sims have blown up since the release of Stardew Valley back in 2016. While the game still has a very active player base, many people are always looking for the next big thing. Fields of Mistria is perfectly set to take that stage. 

It’s easy to tell that developers wanted to perfect every little thing about the game, and it’s paid off. Everything about Fields of Mistria is taken to the next level, perfecting every aspect of the cozy farming sim genre. There's an endless amount of great things to say about Fields of Mistria, but I'll let you discover some of it for yourself. 

Fields of Mistria was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by NPC Studio over the course of 10 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.