A Colourful Twist on the Agricultural Sim
Every now and then, even as a serious games journalist, it is good to kick back and play a nice, simple game. Not every game has to be Dark Souls, you know?
And this leads me onto Super Farming Boy. As you may deduce from the title, this is something of a farming simulator, unleashed onto the Xbox by LemonChilli and Renxo Europe. The Xbox Store page touts this title in the most interesting of ways – “Super Farming Boy™ is an exciting mix of ACTION, PUZZLE, and FARMING SIM, heavily relying on CHAIN REACTIONS and COMBOS”; hopefully all those capital letters mean that is serious fun, right?
Reclaiming Your Powers
Kicking off with the story, and there is a clear narrative to play through. We play as Super, a farming boy who has a lot of powers at his disposal, and a loving mother to help him. That is, until the day the evil Korpo came calling!
Korpo not only takes our powers, but also kidnaps our mother, and then sets about exploiting us, charging us tax to work on our own land. Basically, we have to plant and harvest crops, clear our farm, sell whatever we can to Korpo at the end of every day, and buy back our powers and friends.
Sounds pretty straightforward, yeah? Well, with a day night cycle and also seasons (that don’t follow the usual pattern of the seasons we know, to say the least) we have our work cut out.
Hand-Drawn Charm
Presentation wise and Super Farming Boy is visually cute, super colourful and full of character. That is aided by the fact that Super has a lot of personality, and the friends we can recruit (including a dog who is also a watering can, obviously) all look very nice indeed. The graphics have a hand drawn, colourful vibe to them, and really help draw you into the world. From there, the NPCs come with have an appealing design, as do the merchants that we can spend our hard earned money with.
What is most interesting though is how Super can transform into the tools required for progress to be made; that in itself is quite cool. And then, the vegetables that we purchase and plant have a certain charm to them. All in, all, the graphics are very good indeed.
Sound is minimal, with various chopping and smashing noises, and a nice pop sound effect when we harvest a crop. The rest of the presentation is done via the medium of static text windows, and they do a good job of conveying what is happening in the game.
The Strategy Behind the Harvest
So, presentation and story are both good, how about the gameplay? Well, in a rare triple whammy, that too is very good indeed. Super Farming Boy comes with a basic premise, and that means at the heart it’s all about planting crops, harvesting crops, selling them at the end of the day, and then rinsing and repeating.
However, scratch beneath the surface and there is a surprising amount of depth to be found. The first thing to get used to is the way the crops interact with each other. You see, pulling a crop out of the ground can trigger others to be harvested, in what is known in the game as a combo. As an example, when you pull up an ear of corn, it then triggers the crop next to it to be harvested, and so on. So, if you have a long row of corn, they can all be harvested in one go by picking the left most one out of the ground. Other crops affect each other in different ways, and so you’ll need to consider how you prepare the ground (by clearing trees, rocks and bushes, then hoeing it to prepare for planting) and where you plant crops; if only to ensure your work load is lessened.
The Daily Grind for Skills and Secrets
And this isn’t even starting with the super crops you can grow! Luckily, there is a good tutorial to play through that will show you the ropes, and there are always things to work towards with the to-do list.
Planning how crops go together is but one of the tasks you have to fulfil, and I have to be honest, time has absolutely flown by while I’ve been playing Super Farming Boy. You’ll need to keep an eye on stamina levels (we do need to sleep or eat in order to keep our strength up), as well as having to temper what we do. Everything in the game takes a certain amount of energy, from smashing rocks which are very energy intensive, to walking to the shops; you have to keep on top of your status or you will faint.
A Cute and Deep Farming Adventure
There are lots of plants to buy and use, loads of secrets to find, and a world ripe for exploration, all coming together with the need to earn enough money and materials to buy the skills and friends required. Basically, you won’t get bored playing Super Farming Boy.
That said, it can get a bit samey (the gameplay loop is basically the same, season to season), but Super Farming Boy has such charm that you won’t mind the grind too much. If you want a cute but quite deep game, you could do a lot worse than Super Farming Boy.
Important Links
Fly, Smash, Harvest – Super Farming Boy Brings Mayhem to Xbox – https://www.thexboxhub.com/fly-smash-harvest-super-farming-boy-brings-mayhem-to-xbox/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/super-farming-boy/9NLWRTB44BCB/0010
