izigame.me

This is my favorite game I've played in a long time and I'm so glad that I decided to take the chance on early access. The gameplay loop is really fun and there's always something for me to do. It's so addictive that it's hard for me to not just keep playing and starting another day even when I say I'm done and this is the last one. I'm sure my husband's sick of that.
PROS:
I did play my time in Portia and though I liked it, this game improved it in many ways. My favorite improvement is the fact that I can sprint without using endurance and it's one of the reasons why I can't go back to playing Portia after this. I also love that the mining no longer feels like a tacked-on mechanic. It's so addictive that half the time, I return to my house too late and end up with ghastly dark circles the next day.
Gameplay: There is so much to do! This game has everything: farming, building, mining, simple but fun combat, relationship building, engaging writing, a fun plot, and a frankly addictive gameplay loop. The skill tree system is unique in that the types of skills are in their own categories, and you only earn skills in things you're doing a lot of.
Building: Building stuff in the workshop is incredibly fun, even though there are timers to manage. I like that as you upgrade your equipment, the less you need to manage, and unlocking perks drive me to keep at it to reap the rewards.
Farming is not the main part of the gameplay, but the farming system is still fun and rewarding enough to invest time in. I think that it ties in well with cooking and gives you another way to make money.
Combat: The combat is really fun even though it's incredibly simple and I'm just mashing a button all day, but the animations and the combos make it feel less monotonous and look very impressive. I like that. It's easy enough for people that are playing it for the life sim rather than for the combat aspect. You don't have to be good at video games, so it doesn't detract from the relaxing vibe of the game. Playing through the Breach and the Shipyard Ruins feels like a completely different game and I welcome the change of pace.
Adjustable Pacing: I love that you can adjust the pace of the day and I always set it to 0.6x but I would love it if I could set it down even lower. The pace is pretty perfect right now but even slower would be nice. Regardless, this is a great QoL option I wish more farming sims would implement.
Characters: The characters are also lovable and the NPCs make me want to go out of my way to talk to them every single day. I love that I can build relationships with everyone even if they are not romanceable, and they're all very different. Some of them took time to grow on me, and that speaks to how well the characters are written.
Story: I love how cute and wholesome everything is even when it should be dire, and the humor is on point. I love the desert setting and the way the narrative tackles the challenges and explores solutions to revert the desertification and economic crisis. As someone who is very depressed about climate change, this is like a soothing balm for my soul.
Economy: The economy in this game feels very balanced, which many games seem to fail at. Certain story events make certain items cost more until they're resolved, and the game rewards you for building relationships with shop owners via them giving you friendship discounts. It feels like the interactions matter, and not just through the conversation.
CONS:
Bugs: There's a bug that I kept running into throughout the game where key cards glitch and it's happened in two dungeons already. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, I can't progress. I can get around it by making a save right before I enter the key card so it's not completely game-breaking, but I lost a lot of progress before I started doing that.
Commissions: The game should not be giving me commissions that I can't complete at that point. This has happened to me several times where I have failed commissions because I didn't research ahead of time to see if I have access to materials or machines that would enable me to complete them.
If they could just not make them available or even just let me know that I'm unable to do them with my current equipment or being at this point in the story, that would be a huge improvement. This just adds stress to a game that should be relaxing and I hate that I have commissions that have failed due to a lack of details.
Additionally, the details for materials from monster drops should be more specific and helpful. Instead of an item being described as "from monsters", it should specify which monster so I can know where to hunt them.
Another issue with commissions is when I don't have access to a character to turn commissions in because they're asleep and I end up failing it overnight. I want the option to turn in commissions straight to the board when a character is unavailable due to the story or because it's after 19:00. It would still make sense but it would make the game a lot less stressful.
Graphics: I would like the option to turn off sandstorm days. They can be such a drag and sometimes I want to sleep early to skip them because I don't feel like doing anything when the visibility is so bad. Let me adjust the intensity of the sandstorm or give me an incentive to not skip them by going to bed early like certain monsters are higher level/have better drop rates during them.
The fog inside the Moisture Farm also makes my game lag like crazy. Even playing on a nicer setup that should be able to handle it just fine, this game seems like it could be optimized better. Being able to turn off the fog would be great.
Customization: I don't like how the clothes look in this game and I wish there were more girly dresses and just clothing options, in general, to play around with. I end up just going for what has the best specs and my character looks like a hot mess most of the time. There are clothes in Vivi's shop that looks cute, but they're not available to buy. I would like more furniture as well because most of them look terrible and they don't match and I'm hoping there will be more matching furniture sets in the future. Some of the wooden furniture you can paint, but others you can't, and that makes no sense.
Building: Building my workshop through Construction Junction is the opposite of fun. The mechanic is tedious and unintuitive and I hate that NOTHING IS CENTERED. This is probably my biggest gripe along with how things need so much clearance space for no reason, so I can't put beds flush up against the wall or centered with the windows This is so stupid and it takes up so much space and it doesn't look good. I would like to be able to place stuff more easily because the locking mechanism is very clunky right now. I notice how there are certain things you can place with Ctrl, but I don't understand why it doesn't work across the board with placing everything.
Currently, it's so hard to build your house from scratch that I'm just saving up for one of the presets.
Inventory: I don't like the fact that sometimes I need the stuff in my bag for certain things, whereas the rest of the time, the game automatically pulls from my storage. It's so tedious to go through my chest to find the pieces of relics to bring to the museum when quests and commissions don't require the same. It's just inconsistent.