izigame.me

I can't recommend this game in its current state. The ideas are very good, but the execution leaves a LOT to be desired.
Pros:
-Cozy, tranquil vibes, even though you are restricted by resources/time you can still take it easy
-Interesting concepts and ideas, mixing monster-collecting, deckbuilding card battler and farming sim (think Pokémon, Slay the Spire and Stardew Valley)
-Exploration is fairly fun at first and crafting is promising but doesn't go very far at the moment
-Cutesy pixel-art graphics and pleasant-enough background music
Cons: (this is where things derail)
-BUGS. The game is a buggy mess. Even though its a full-release, it has game-breaking bugs. Freezes that require a full Alt+F4 happen FREQUENTLY, and are even worse on Steam Deck, it's been known for months and not fixed yet. Shopkeepers taking your gold and resources and not giving what you bought in return. Upgrades that disappear from the shop list making them permanently unattainable. One type of potion gives you the bottles back after using, and the other type doesn't. The list goes on. Honestly, it feels like the game is actually in some state of Early Access due to the amount of problems. And about that...
-Limited systems. Remember when I said it feels like an Early Access? There are few-ish crafting stations, and each one (with the exception of the Decoration Station, which is mechanically "useless") only has a handful of useful recipes. It kinda feels like they started each thing and dropped it halfway through. The main character is an alchemist, but the game only allows you to break about 20 different "potions", and half of them (elemental resistance) become completely useless (you get equipment to nullify the damage) less than halfway into the game. In fact, by the time you get ACCESS to the cauldron required to make those potions, you'll probably already have one of the equips that nullify said damage. And even with the cauldron, you still need to RNG unlock the potion recipe! You can also mix two ingredients into a "concoction", which is done in a different crafter and are simply a mash-up of two foods into a new super-food with the stat bonuses of both. The main crafting station (Moonstone Enchanter) only has a similarly limited number of useful things to craft, same goes for the anvil (only makes the talismans that nullify damage, mentioned above, two-thirds of which become irrelevant because you can just make the most advanced one right off the bat and the first two are laughably bad anyway). All in all, there's the constant feeling like they had these really cool ideas, started to implement and then gave up and left the crafting system half-done. What actually IS there works well and looks good, but there isn't much there.
-Limited combat. There's 80 total "spirits" (the monsters you tame). That's not a bad enough number, but compared to Pokémon's starting 150 it feels a little short. Specially considering that some elements have more spirits than others. Ice? Only three. Earth? A good solid dozen. Not only that, but each spirit's "cards" aren't actually unique to them. There's a pool of "neutral" cards that any spirit can get, and there's a pool for each element from each all spirits of that element draw. So two different Water spirits will have access to the SAME cards. The only effective difference between spirits of the same element is that each spirit has an unique "Passive" ability, which is useless in many cases (extra light radius at night? That's just brilliant! I'll take the one that does extra damage instead...)
-Poor balancing. The way difficulty escalates as you move between islands is very disconcerting and the game does a poor job of telling you how to overcome that. The difficulty ramps up the farther away you go from the central island, but the jumps in difficulty can be really hard to overcome, specially if you happen to be at elemental disadvantage. Not only that, but heals are limited, so you're very limited in how much you can grind for EXP per day before you run out of items. Not only that, but you also get pitiful amounts of EXP when fighting spirits of the same level. You NEED to buff your spirits up with concoctions/food in order to boost their stats, so that they can punch up at enemies above their level in order to make decent EXP. At that point, you could just search and tame the same set of spirits, but at a higher level island, replacing your team with another of higher level. Might be just my opinion here, but that feels kinda dumb. Am I supposed to level up my team? If so, why is it so hard to level them and so easy to tame a new, updated one? Am I supposed to tame a new one at each level bracket? If so, why do monsters get EXP (there's even food that gives EXP) in the first place?
-Janky controls. The targeting and use of tools feels very clunky. At first it doesn't bother you as much as you're getting used to stuff. But once you have a plantation with dozens and dozens of crops and you need to water them all and the aiming reticle is all over the place, it gets annoying FAST. Combat controls are a little bad but not terrible once you get used to them. Overall, it feels "Not horrible, but noticeably unpolished". You also stumble on some strange design choices, such as: You can get upgraded flying tools (Balloon > Broom > Glider), but once you upgrade to a better tool, the old one stays in your tool list forever even though you're never going to use it again. You're still forced (*eye roll*) to use the Broom in dungeons, but you'll never use the Balloon again and it will stay forever in your tool list. Not only that, but tools are put away separately from your inventory, in your "Tool Wheel". The kicker? You can't switch tools with a button press, you gotta bring up your Wheel and select it each time. The second kicker? The Wheel only fits 8 tools, and you use more than that, so sometimes you have to bring up the Wheel and manually change your selection (*EYE ROLL*) on the fly just to use it once, and then switch back.
-Limited content. NPCs? Two-dimensional. There's very little dialog compared to other games of this genre. Everyone has very simplistic personalities, not many lines and not much in the way of events or interactions. Only 80 spirits, which all share common card pools based on their elements. Some elements have almost no spirits. There aren't many NPCs to begin with. There's a bloat of different crops, but the vast majority are completely useless and obsolete even in the season when they're introduced (because there's another crop that does the same, but better, and unlocks at the same time). Few crafting options, few buildings (your house, your barn and your greenhouse. That's it. And the greenhouse is pretty small), few cards, there's plenty of basic dungeons, but they tend to be a little short and simplistic. There's four major "season temples", but the "temples" are a joke. Each is just three rooms, the first with a new tool (more useless tool bloat, yay!) and each with a boss fight. That's it.
I could keep going, but at this point you get the picture. It's a sad waste of potential.
I really want to love this game, and I did at first. It has all the right ideas, but I just can't recommend it in its current state. Either wait for a BIG sale, or wait until they fix at least some of these issues before grabbing it. There are other, better farm sims and monster-collection games out there.