Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (The Direct Mini XSEEDed Expectations)

Last multi-post from me on this game, promise. I had one of those nights last night where I was slightly underprepared for the third big boss (who gives me strong Metroid vibes)...

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...and was always getting it down to a quarter of its health bar before dying to one of its cheaper attacks. Next thing I know, The Lady's advising me to go to bed and it's an hour later than I thought. Of course I beat the bastard first time I tried today...

That's the thing about this game for me though: it's incredibly moreish. It's got a strong 'one more thing' vibe. It only takes a moment to progress the farming a step, or gather some materials, or even finish entire levels once you know what you're doing. Part of my brain spends the entire time planning my next move, and once it's planned it's very tempting to carry out... and before I know it, an hour's gone by in what feels like minutes.

This is quite quite likely to be my game of 2020, not that it had a huge amount of competition. Marvellous stuff (pun not intended).

You have sold it to me, but it's finding it cheapish as just had to have some stuff done on the car, along with then having time to play it as my backlog is on the big side and the frontlog is very RPG heavy.

I think it's right game at the wrong time for me as it launched amongst next gen systems and now reasons I give above but will keep an eye out for it that if I see used in my local game shop I'll pick up.

Balladeer wrote:

...and was always getting it down to a quarter of its health bar before dying to one of its cheaper attacks.  Next thing I know, The Lady's advising me to go to bed and it's an hour later than I thought.  Of course I beat the bastard first time I tried today...

This happened so often to me with the Souls-style games I've played.

Like Mas, your post definitely has me intrigued but I'm still a bit puzzled as to how it all fits together. What does the core gameplay loop look like?

HELLO HI YES I WILL TALK ABOUT SAKUNA WITH YOU YES DEAR GOD

Sorry. I finished Sakuna on Wednesday and... you know that thing when you finish a great game and there's nothing else that you're excited to play and the great game's still taking up residence in your head, and find yourself feeling a bit lost to the point where you finish a chore and your first thought is, 'Yay time to play the game!... wait, aww'? Maybe you don't, it's a very specific feeling. Anyway, that's where I am with Sakuna and I'd love to talk about it, except no bastard's played it (likely for Mas' reasons among others) so I've taken that feeling out on a Gintendo article draft.

(The last bit of the game before the endgame was actually a bit duff, but the game's systems are still so good and I was still so emotionally invested that it didn't matter.)

Core gameplay loop... Basically you're trying to complete 'exploration goals', which you accomplish by playing through 2D platforming-combat levels (and the combat is really good, putting me in mind of Muramasa more than anything else). Your meal the previous in-game day determines some temporary buffs and also gives you ongoing healing, which you will need - but when your stomach empties towards the end of that day, you lose that healing. At this point you basically go back to your home and tend the rice. Depending on the time of year and point in the farming cycle there may be more or less farming to do, and some days are entirely rice while some are entirely exploration. At the very end of the day, you give the cook some materials you collected (the ones that haven't gone into weapons, armour, fertilisers, or the odd quest), have dinner, and the cycle repeats.

Is that clear-ish? Like I say I'm hoping to put out a Ginny piece, but I can't promise that be any clearer. It might just be overenthusiastic warbling and one really bad joke.

Ah neat! That sounds like a really pleasant gameplay loop - reminds me of a roguelite in many ways which is no bad thing considering how much I dig that genre. Although I presume that unlike roguelites there's more permanent progression throughout the exploration stages?

As for that post game blues, I totally know where you're coming from! It definitely takes me a day or two to properly get into a new game following one that's totally captured my imagination.

The goals you've completed stay done, the little flag at the end of some levels showing you've beaten it stays done, and of course they're not procedurally generated (yippie!).  Oh, and I don't think you can mine the same resources from the same level two days in a row?  The enemies do regenerate though.  In summary, I haven't played enough roguelikes to know what I'm talking about!

Oh and obviously I did get that Ginny article finished: https://gintendo-namer.squarespace.com/reviews/sakuna-matata

I've got a day off booked in tomorrow so I'll give that a read as opposed to hurriedly replying to threads during quiet spells at work.

I await your thoughts eagerly, Sir Moyles!

Started this evening and played around 2hrs. I like the 2D combat reminds me of a Muramasa and the 3D sections around the house look really good, surprised how good it looks.

Just 2hrs in I'm basically on the same quest, even though I now have four places to explore that I'm gathering I'm waiting for my rice to grow.

Yep, it's surprisingly pretty for a two-man-team game.  The XSeed difference?  It is also a slow burn, but maybe that will bother you less than it would some others here.