Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Apr 7, 2018

  This game is a 50/50 : either you'll love it or you'll hate it. First of all, if you're a Stardew Valley fan and you're looking for a new farming game to play, don't bother. This game is really not about farming at all. To be honest, you could be a janitor or a fisher, the game would be the same. The farming mechanics are very simple: you have 3 crops/seasons, 40 tiles in your field, and you only have to plant seeds, water every day, and harvest. Period. You can upgrade your tools, but it will never really change. You can only have 3 animals: horse, cows and chickens, and those are static; they aren't really animated. All you can do is ring the bell to make them graze outside, feed them and get their eggs/milk. Why do I like this game you ask, then, if it's not about farming? Well. What makes this game great is the social aspect. The characters are very detailled, the portraits are well-drawn, they all have a story, much more than in SV or Harvest Moon games. The village and the villagers themselves are more interesting than the farming aspect. So if you like games with heavy farming mechanics, lots of crops, animals, farm expansions, different things to do, don't buy this game, you'll be disappointed. Go play Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons. BUT, if you're looking for a more chill/cute game with no pressure, go for World's Dawn. It's way less fleshed out than its rival games, but way more "Harvest Moon 64-ish".
• gamedeal user

  Jan 26, 2016

  From what little i've played of this game, it seems very, very reminesent of the Harvest Moon games, specifcally Friends of Mineral Town for Gameboy, which is probaly one of my favorite hand held games ever. The game is very atmospheric so far, very charming too, and the little details, like flower petals flowing in the wind, rabbits running around, and birds flying in the sky are much appreciated. The sprites are very nice looking, and the game looks very appealing (for a RPG Maker game). The character potraits...I really like, but I can see why some people might be put off by them. The music, is great as well. Very harvest moonish. Characters are enjoyable so far. Rather large cast. (I think I read somewhere that they focused more on the writing then the gameplay). Charaters are written very well as well. Leauges better then Harvest Moon. Theres alot of unqiue dialouge as well. (All characters will comment on the weather, the day before a special event, the day after a special event, and more). While Harvest Moon seemed only to devolep it's marriable characters with heart events, alot of side characters are given the same treatment with heart event-esque events. From what little i've expierenced from the farming, it's slightly simplfied compared to Harvest Moon, but still very fun. I'll update this when I get to the mining, fishing, festivels and upgrading the farmstead. Mining is...rather differnt then Harvest Moon (A good thing). Unlike Harvest Moon, you dont need a hoe to go down levels, instead the mine has set room (five in total). While the further you go down, the harder it is to mine minerals, the better chance of aquiring high quality ones. Also, unlike Harvest Moon, you dont go gems you can sell right away. You need to proccess them first (at a special station right outside the mine). When you proccess them, you get a random gem stone, that you can sell (depending on the quality of the mineral you mined, your chances of getting low, mid, and high tier gems are increased, or descreased) You can also choose the names for your animals, which was a nice little detail I loved in the Harvest moon games. Apparantley, you can also rename your farmstead later on in the game after gettinng a certain item, which is cool. Probaly my favorite aspect of the harvest moon series, is the courting parts, acting like a dating sim at times. Thankfully, it seems the devs have put effort into it. I've meet several differnt candiates so far, and it seems pursuing and romancing various ones, will add a good bit of repalaybility to the game (which the harvest moon games are known for), as the romance candiates personalities are all radically differnt. One thing it surpasses its progenitor on, is the ability to romance the same gender (which is a feature the Harvest Moon fanbase has been clamoring for, for years). At the start when your making your own character, you get the option to choose which sex your attracted too. After being crushed by the disapointment that was Wild-Season, it seems we've finally gotten an excellent Harvest Moon-esque farming sim on Steam. Whole heardley recomend this to farming sim, Harvest Moon, and dating sim fans. Really excited to keep playing and explore the vast amounts of other aspects the game has to offer.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 27, 2021

  Having played Stardew and Littlewood extensively, I was hoping this would be my next escape. However, after about 7 hours of play, I gave up. I feel a little guilty leaving such a negative review, but I was just feeling so frustrated after finishing up, and there were a lot of things that could have been better. I found that for me, the game mechanics made the game feel super unrewarding. The main things off the top of my head: 1. I don't like that you can't re-key the commands when using keyboard- this seems like a really basic quality of life thing that just isn't there. I'm used to games with a default AWSD move pad - this uses the arrow keys and you can't change it. Also, for those that care, this is controller or keyboard only - no mouse. 2. The path layouts are irritating, and make you go out of your way. Granted how slowly you move (unless you sprint and use up precious energy), this annoyed me every single time I wanted to go somewhere. 3. As far as I can tell, there's no summonable map that you can look at any time you like - just little map kiosks that are scattered around, with no way to see a detailed map of where shops are. Let alone what times things are open or what days they're closed - you have to walk up and read the sign in front of each shop. I regularly wound up trying to go somewhere that was closed. 4. Time moves continuously, like in Stardew, but because you move around so slowly and inefficiently, it feels like you can't do hardly anything in a day. I don't mind time pressure in a game, but not being able to do much with my day makes me feel stressed and unrewarded. Eventually you can buy a horse, which I made my first priority, but you can't get one until the 14th day at the earliest. Until then, you have to spend some of your (limited) energy to sprint. Granted the fact that you have to get back to your house before 11:50 pm to avoid taking an energy hit the next day, it just really felt like you couldn't do much and it was not a relaxed pace. I would recommend they use a dynamic like Littlewood instead, where instead of a ticking clock, the day progresses as you use energy. That, or speed up the character from the start. 5. There are some general pacing / quality of life things that I found annoying - for example, the day after you get permission to buy a horse, the horse seller is closed. Why? Have the horse festival the day before so you can buy your horse immediately the next day. Especially granted how tired I was of how slow everything was going, and how relieved I was that I was finally going to go faster, that felt like a slap in the face. Especially since I wasted like 2-3 hours of in game time running to the (very far away) horse seller and back for nothing. 6. Planting crops takes up a ton of energy. You can't plant your full plot of 40 plants with one tank of energy (at the beginning of the game, before your energy is expanded), let alone enough energy to also water them all that same day. This sort of makes sense, since crops seem to be the best money maker, but spread your crop rotations out if you're gonna play this game. 7. Easily forageable foods barely added anything back to my energy meter. I also disliked that I had to eat them at a table - just let me eat them from wherever I'm at. Alternatively, you could rest at a bench for an hour or more to regain some energy - however, it also didn't add very much at all back per hour, and the days already feel like you don't have enough time without having to sacrifice in game hours. 8. It was punishing to have to click through like 4 clicks for every single item you wanted to sell. First click into your inventory, then select the category, then select the item, then select the number you want to sell. For every item you're trying to sell. Very tedious. 9. At the beginning, it takes an in-game hour to catch one fish. I immediately gave up on fishing. 10. Forageable items are not easy enough to see - they glow / flash slightly, but I still miss them if I'm sprinting by. 11. I will admit that I did not do anything with recipes. This is because most of the recipes I saw required a large variety of items to cook. Granted how pinched you are for money at the beginning of the game, and the fact that you have to buy each cooking station at the rate of once per week on TV, I found cooking to be somewhat unwelcoming. Overall, I think that if they did not have a ticking time mechanic, I would have felt much more chill about the slow place of the game and the limited number of things I could do in a day, and I would have just kind of slowly explored different facets of the game. None of these things by itself was unbearable, but together they made for a tedious, not fun playing experience. I was not immersed, I was not feeling rewarded, and I felt stressed and annoyed. A few positives to counter the negatives, and to assuage my guilt for leaving this review: 1. The art is cute, and the characters are cute. I like the dialog, and I like the cut scenes. 2. Your dog is cute. I like digging around for things in the dirt. 3. It's nice to not have to worry about inventory management, or your inventory filling up. That said, the inventory interface is a little clunky. 4. I liked the once per day hot spring energy refresh - it didn't really take extra time, and you just get a refreshed energy meter, once per day. By contrast, in Stardew, going to the spa takes about 2 in game hours. They did better at this perk than Stardew did. 5. There are some subtle little things that you find by exploring or experimenting, that I found engaging. You may enjoy this game if you like repetitive tasks and aren't too fussed about time pressure or getting things done. I did not personally find it to be a good fit for my desired game pace and game mechanics.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 28, 2016

  World's Dawn is a game that your either going to love or hate. It is not a complicated game so if your coming in looking for a deep farming simulation or complex gameplay then you may want to look elsewhere. What the game does have in spades though is charm. You start off as a new arrival to the town of Sugar Blossom. You have a small plot of farming land (20 tiles) as well as a barn that can hold 2 cows, a horse, and 4 chickens. On top of this you have a dog you start with and it is even possible to get a cat as well. There is also fishing, gathering plants that grow around town, and mining, and mixing drinks/juice/sauces, and a local sport called lockball that you can partake in as well though it all remains fairly straightfoward and easy to understand. So again not the most elaborate set up but enough to let you run your small farm and keep you busy as you progress through the seasons and the story while you learn about the history of the village and the spirits that keep it safe. Beyond this is the social aspect which is easily the largest portion of the game. There are 25+ other people in the town ranging from the local baker, an artist, the town mayor, the rancher, a priest, etc, etc and all of them have their own personality's, likes, and routines throughout the day, and you can develop friendship or even romance with some of them if you so deire. It really makes you feel like part of a community as you go about your life in your new home. Aside from all that each season that I've played so far (after 13 hours I've just started Summer) has a couple markets where the townsfolk gather to meet and sell some goods and two festivals such as a horse race, music festival, and a beach festival each with their own mini activity that you can participate in. Altogether as said the game absolutely nails the feel that you are in this small cheerful country community. It's not complex, it's not buried in deep mechanics for you to manage your life with. But it is a relaxing and enjoyable way to spend time provided your willing to sit back and go with the flow. If your looking to manage a farm and make a ton of money from it and to see how quickly you can go from rags to riches this is likely not the game for you. However if you want the gaming equivalent of sitting on your front porch with a nice glass of lemonade and just relaxing and enjoying life for a bit, then I would by all means recommend giving this game a shot.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2016

  World's Dawn is similar to Stardew Valley in that you have just inherited a farm house in a tiny rural village and you can grow crops, fish, mine, cook, and make friends with all the villagers; however, World's Dawn has much more focus on your relationships with the villagers than on the farming and other stuff (especially the mining, that is tiny compared to how Stardew does it). If you really liked the farming/mining/fishing in Stardew but not so much the relationships stuff, then this is probably not the game for you. If you wanted more out of the relationships in Stardew and don't need the farming etc as much, then World's Dawn is probably worth a try.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 11, 2017

  i love it i have had a hard time focusing on games due to depression and this is the longest i['ve ever been able to sit down and play a game thank you
• gamedeal user

  Feb 7, 2016

  Beautifully charming game in the style of classic Harvest Moon. The writing is much better, I think, and the amount of content from a single man development is amazing. Recently the game was updated with double the farmland, and an improved watering can to make watering these new plots easier. The dev engages fans, listens to suggestions and implements some of the most requested. World's Dawn is worth every penny.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 27, 2016

  I bought this game because it was supposed to be like Harvest Moon. I'm now close to finishing an ingame year. + The town and art style is very much like Harvest Moon + There are a lot of interesting characters with lovely art to socialize with + The dog is helpful, barking on spots where you could dig out some items + Some events, scenes and dialogues in this game made me smile to no end. This is a happy game. - You have a farmland of 40 tiles and farm by seeding tile by tile and watering tile by tile. The watering can is your only tool and upgradable to water 3x3 tiles. - Friendship is a grind, as is tradition in the genre. I once gifted a whole harvest to a girl without visable change in the 1 to 10 affection meter. After finishing the friendship grind on 3 villagers, the game seemed to reward me with... some random dialogue lines. - You can only bind the shovel and watering can. You cannot bind anything else like the brush or milking device or animal fodder. This makes the daily barn work quite nasty. If you need a Harvest Moon on PC, this isn't what you want. Games like "Friends of Mineral Town" had a significantly larger focus on farming simulation. World's Dawn is a small town simulator with a little gardening on the side.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 16, 2017

  People forget that this came out long before Stardew Valley... So Im gunna give this credit for everything that is in it before I credit SV. Yes SV has more content but overall, out of the 2, this one is more relaxing. You don't have to run around as much and honestly it has a better sountrack than Stardew Valley. I own both games. I love both games. I will continue to play both games. If you have the $$, I recommend buying this and giving it a go if your a laid-back gamer like me. The characters in Worlds Dawn also draw you in more than the SV ones do. You will find yourself feeling like your really pulled in with this one.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 8, 2019

  World's Dawn had the strange luck of being released shortly before Stardew Valley; back in the day I was way more excited for World's Dawn than SDV, and put in about 10 hours in each before moving on. I enjoyed both games, but remembered the social aspect and Harvest Moon throwbacks of World's Dawn more fondly. So, 3 years later and having revisited SDV in depth, I'm leaving a review for World's Dawn instead of SDV because, guys, this is a hidden GEM. Let's be clear: there is less to do overall in World's Dawn than in Stardew Valley, but if you're looking for a similar experience to it or are a fan of Harvest Moon games, you owe it to yourself to try this game out. It's closer in feel to HM thanks to its overall more lighthearted and wholesome atmosphere and its anime-inspired graphics. And if you snatch this game up, you'll be supporting a developer who actually makes these rare kinds of games! I'm super excited for his new work, A Story Beside, which he has persisted with despite daunting health issues. So, if you want a more social farming sim or a Harvest Moon throwback, spend a weekend with World's Dawn and make sure to follow 'A Story Beside.' <3