(Played on Steam Deck with Japanese voice and text. “35.6 hours” to see the credits roll according to the Steam clock.)
Yours truly personally do not think highly of “video game adaption”. I mean without interaction, almost no game’s story holds up. But they seem to be earning their keeps in 2024 by bring more to the games they are based on, like Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. This “cozy farming sim” became the base of a Saturday Moring Cartoon (Show airs in Japan at 11 pm on Saturday, which would be Seven in the morning on the West Coast of USA.) since July, 2024. I missed the game at its launch, then the anime reminded me of it. So, I just bought it fifty percent off during Steam Summer Sale 2024. The number of stars already told you that it got a thumb-up with caveats, let’s just see which is which.
“Persephone, the Dragon Slayer. New Episode, every Saturday, 7 am PST”
Once upon a time, in a land called Yanato, five mortals wandered into the realm of gods in an attempt to evade dangers. Their misfortune was furthered as a lay-about goddess named Sakuna was tasked to escort them out. Sakuna did such a lousy job that she got exiled to the monster-packed Hinoe island for failing to take the mortals home and destroyed her rice reserve for a god empress in the process. On this island, Sakuna had to grow that grain reserve up again while killing some monsters. Lucky for her, those five mortals proved more helpful than they appeared.
Despite its similarity to games like Okami and Muramasa on the surface, Sakura: Of Rice and Ruin is not retelling Japanese mythology. Instead, it’s a modern fairytale taking elements from the ancient myth. The “fairytale” elements are obvious in character that can be seen as plain terms just in case some curious kids ask “What’s in that name”. Take player character Sakuna for example, her name literally means “Blooming Rice”, with the game’s mechanic taken into consideration, it’s self-explaining.
The five mortals are: Tauemon, a weak warrior more interested in farm work; Malte, the mum for the group from a foreign land; Kinda, a lad aims for excellence in blacksmithing; Yui, a lass who weaves; and Kaimaru, a very young boy good with animals. Sakuna is quite an unlikable brat compared to them. Their presentation is a welcome one here as an added Saturday Morning Cartoon flavor.
The story of Sakuna can be seen as a state establishing myth. With her parents being a god of war and a goddess of farm, her efforts of warring and farming are unmistakably metaphor of statehood. The tale’s Persephone element comes from how the lass is mothered by a deity farmers pray to and the stage practically being the underworld. Not without a lord she has to please. And don’t call the dragon slaying part out as a spoiler, it’s just the end goal of the game.
Beat a broken sword into a working plow plus sickle
Don’t let the “beat sword into plow” thing fool you, this game has a lot of fights in it. Opening and closing on battles actually. It’s mostly a side-scrolling action game with platforming and melee combat. There is the usual left face button for light attack and up for heavy. The jump is usual (Mapped to down jump button, though this game has no double and more jump.) while the dodge is not.
The right bumper is attached to what the game calls raiment. It’s a tool for both reaching higher places during platforming and grabbing enemies during fighting. Usually, it’s about swinging around an enemy, thus serves as a dodge.
The right face button combined with directions and whether one is mid-air is for more powerful attacks consuming a bar of regeneratable energy. This would bring some frustration with the game’s hit box issues.
Sakuna also have role-playing element with an emphasis on leveling. Though it’s not the more you kill the higher levels you get. Instead, leveling or stats improvement to be more precis is attached to the farming aspect. Sakuna has “rice” in her name, so growing better rice makes her a better hunter and warrior.
The hub area called Our Home is presented in the behind-the-back third person rather than side-scrolling perspective. At its center is a square rice field with a fairly robust system. The farming starts with planting seeds. Then watering and adding fertilizer. Finally harvesting and processing the grain. But before all those can be repeated during the next 4 seasons, one has to clean the field of rocks and plow it again. As the amount produced improves, all those steps would also be taken faster further into the game.
The closet thing to “killing enemies for experience” is killing them for jade fragments used for fertilizer. The basic 3 ingredients for fertilizing is about root, leave and grain, none would work efficiently without the jade fragment. Addition ingredients would makes sure the other aspect of the crops to improve.
As the east Asian myth inspired it, passage of time is different in Sakuna. One year contains 12 days instead of months, though it still has 4 seasons. Spring is always for plant seed, late summer or early fall is for harvest and the last day of winter is always for preparing the field.
Sakuna does not carry healing item to the fights, so it’s always about regenerating health with a full stomach. A day usually starts with taking care of farming business like making the water level is right, applying fertilizer or rooting out grass. Then there is the side scrolling action for story progress. After that, due to hunger or the night making enemies too tough, Sakuna comes home and ask Malte for dinner (Only rice is homegrown, while everything else shall be hunted or gathered.). The night is for particular objectives only completable at nights, more farming or sleep until the sun rises.
5 mortals living in this hub all have their tasks and I had already written about Malte’s. Kinda is the one to see for better weapon while Yui makes protective wears. Sakuna got 5 equipment slots: light or one-handed weapon, heavy or two-handed weapon, hat, cloth and mask. Finding masks is usually objective to complete. Tauemon is the one for farm planning while the cub Kaimaru is an animal handler who would bring in animals in to ease the labor. Like a bunch of duck in the field so Sakuna would not have to worry about bugs in mixing the fertilizer. As more stages open up on the island, those mortals can also be sent out for gathering during the day.
Finally got to the third one of those
After Hade and Spiritfarer, Sakuna’s 2020 release made it feel like “the third one of those”. The 2 games I played back then were also made by more experienced developers with less ambition while Sakuna is made by a very small team trying out their largest vision yet. The game certainly attracted caveats for that.
For first thing, the 35 hours or so spent were more than I excepted. And there is certainly sense of patting out as the late third or so is about killing the same bosses yet again. But as farm sim and ARPG hybrid, its connecting farming to character leveling is an unique enough spin that warranted its existence. If someone thought it’s a good idea to pay loyalty for its animated adaption, I for one would call them out on this one.