Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

[Dragon Lord]

[b]Developer[/b]: Edelweiss

[b]Publisher[/b]: XSEED Games

[b]Platform[/b]: PlayStation 4, Steam

[b]Release Date[/b]: 2018

[b]Genre[/b]: Side-Scrolling Action RPG, Farming Sim

It’s the Warring States period. The unending strife and bloodshed that engulfs Japan fills the mortal realm with hatred and despair. These powerful emotions are felt even in the heavens, and demons that feed on this malice appear in droves in places situated on the border between heaven and earth.

A group of humans, each of whom has lost something precious, wanders into the celestial realm. There they meet Sakuna, a proud and high-ranking harvest goddess. Together, the humans and Sakuna cause a ruckus that earns them the ire of the celestial ruler. The ruler exiles them to Hinoe Island, a sacred place that has become overrun with demons, and commands them to reclaim it.

Sakuna and her companions must fight against both the elements and monsters in a harsh yet beautiful environment. Having grown up in the luxury of the celestial realm, Sakuna must rediscover her birthright as a harvest goddess and bring agriculture back to this wild place. And by helping her, the humans banished with her may yet find the reason to live that had been stolen from them. Together, Sakuna and her human companions must join hands and tame both the soil and the demons of Hinoe Island.

Key Features

Refined Side-scrolling Platform Action
Sakuna uses farm implements as weapons, chaining together strong, weak, and special attacks to take down animal demons, and combines this with her “celestial scarf”: a magical item that allows her to grapple distant platforms and enemies.

Detailed 3D Simulation-style Gameplay
The village serves as a base of operations for crafting weapons, cooking food, and farming rice by following detailed steps from planting to harvesting across the seasons, improving the eventual harvest and honing Sakuna’s battle skills.

Stunning Environments and Enemies Inspired by Japanese Legend
A painstakingly researched story incorporating Japanese history and legend sees its heroine face off against numerous types of demons, great and small, as she traverses detailed landscapes rich with the iconography of classic Japanese myths and legends.

A Moving Story about Finding One’s Place
Through her life in the village, Sakuna will learn more and more about her human companions and, hopefully, help find ways to heal their souls.

[Hotspot]

I saw something for this a few days ago, it looks interesting. For some reason it reminds me of the Izuna games.

[Dragon Lord]

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin E3 2018 Trailer

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is scheduled for a 2018 release in North America on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC! Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a brand new title from Edelweiss, the talented indie team behind the highly acclaimed title Astebreed. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin represents a whole new direction for this acclaimed developer, combining side-scrolling action with deep crafting and farming simulation. Players take on the role of Sakuna, a proud yet lonely harvest goddess who is banished to a dangerous island with a group of outcast humans. As she tames the island by defeating demons in gorgeous, mysterious natural settings, she will also find a home in a mountain village, proving herself worthy of her title by harvesting rice and bettering the lives of humans. In addition to serving as a love letter to Japanese mythology, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is an ode to the artistry of cultivating rice, and an engrossing simulation of the craft behind the agriculture.

[Moonface]

I've been meaning to check out the trailer for this game for ages now and finally remembered to actually do it. Going in blind, my first thought was "Holy shit this looks beautiful". Seriously, the art style for this game is so nice!

From the trailer I'm guessing that harvesting rice is how you level up Sakuna, and I suppose fighting enemies is for plot purposes and to get equipment upgrades or something so that harvesting rice remains a focal point of the game that isn't done just because the game forces you to but because it actually helps you and fits with the character.

Never heard of Astebreed, but I might go look that up at some point now after seeing this game.

[ShiraNoMai]

Oh THESE were the people that did Astebreed? I recall it being a small Japanese indie studio but damn, this is quite a different game to Astebreed for sure. Moony, you can take a Quick Look at Astebreed here.

The combat looks super satisfying, I have to say. The feedback from landing attacks has this lovely power oomph to it that just looks so satisfying to watch. Art is great, as Moony said. That's one thing I think carried over from Astebreed lineage. I'll be eyeballing the release of this title for sure, and expect it to receive just as well as Astebreed did

[Mr EliteL]

Completely disregarded this. Think I watched the E3 17 one back then, but not the E3 '18. This is still going, huh? And for Winter this year. Nice. Yeah, art style and combat look great. Also like the fact the environment can be used, with walls and anything an enemy runs into damaging them. The harvesting will be some good down time between the action.

[Dragon Lord]

The fact that the environment hurts the enemies as well is a huge plus for this game. So many games allow enemies to either walk through the environmental hazards or just prevent enemies from being able to be pushed into them. Add in the fact that you can use enemies to combo other enemies, and then throw both of the enemies into an environmental hazard, and this game has then works for some amazing combat.

Can't wait to see what kind of awesome combos you can pull off between all of the mechanics. This game has the right ideas to have one of the best action combat systems out there.

[Moonface]

The combat reminds me a little of Smash Bros. in the sense that everyone is affected by the stage, except this builds on that with enemies flying into each other too. If combat makes up a large part of this game it could appeal to the market of people who enjoy fighters like Smash due to the similarities in combat and help it sell more units.

[Dragon Lord]

If I remember correctly about earlier articles detailing the game, the combat and the harvesting will be a bout a 50-50 split on focus of the game. One will not be more important or focused on more than the other. Both play major roles in the game.

Which is what I'd rather have than a farming simulator with a little bit of combat or an action game with a little bit of farming simulator.

[Moonface]

Glad to hear the combat isn't a smaller section of the game and farming makes up the bulk of it. I wasn't sure how much combat would be in the game since its basis is inspired by rice farming.

[Dragon Lord]

If I had to guess, seeing as Sakuna is a goddess, I would think that the Rice farming will be a way to power Sakuna up. At least I hope that is what it is used for. By harvesting rice and providing food for the people, she gains faith/prayers from the people and that can then be used to power her up.

At least that seems like it'd be the most likely use for the harvesting. Though without any official details on what the harvesting aspect of the game will be for, it is anyone's guess. It's just my hope that they use it in this way.

[Moonface]

The most recent trailer you posted seemed to show you can level up her stats through farming, as it shows a skill graph after she farms and says you can level up from it. Which makes me wonder what you get from fighting monsters if leveling is tied to farming. Unless different aspects of her character are leveled up on each.

[Dragon Lord]

Time for a major bump~

So, I decided to take the conversation over to here since @Moonface had some questions about the combat of the game.

To answer said question, the combat is pretty good. It's not the absolute smoothest combat I've ever experienced, but it holds its own very well and when it comes to "farming simulator" games, it really blows expectations out of the water. The comboing is really good and being able to bounce foes off of each other/the terrain to dish out bigger numbers is very satisfying.

The farming is a lot deeper than I expected and it actually takes a lot of micromanaging to come out with a perfect yield at the end of the season. There's so many things to watch: Is the weather going to be hot or cold? Sunny or cloudy? What's the water level? Okay, it's going to be sunny so I have to add more water than normal since some will evaporate. Oh, it's going to be raining? Better leave less water then. Need to keep an eye on whether or not the rice has any diseases or defects. Are insects ruining the crop? Oops, I had too much water during the growth period and now the rice has damage. Oops, too little water and now it's got dehydration damage. Didn't keep a close enough eye and now there's a ton of damage from insects. Planted too early in the season, didn't space the seeds right when planting...

I was not expecting the farming to have so many details to it that you need to pay attention to. And since the quality of your yield at the end of the season determines how much Sakuna's stats increase, it's extremely important to make sure you are ending with quality.

[Moonface]

Is there a time limit at all to anything in the game? I'm just thinking of things like Stardew where you have a limited amount of time per day to do tasks, which can make things feel rushed. At the same time though I also wouldn't want there to be no limit because something like the farming is really time consuming (like, 30+ minutes per day or something to deal with it).

I also assume there's something to stop you just ignoring the combat and farming stats, or an incentive to go and fight? I'd assume you get rewards since otherwise the stats going up would just mean stronger enemies start attacking which on paper sounds like same shit bigger numbers, which I doubt this is.

[Dragon Lord]

There is a time limit on the days, but the overall game has no time limit. If you want, you can just sit there and keeping farming to max out Sakuna's stats as early as you want. Granted, it's going to be a much slower climb than if you advance the game, where you'll unlock new tools and stuff that will drastically help you farm and give you a better yield (the better the yield, the bigger Sakuna's stat increases are). Enemies don't scale with Sakuna's level, so it is possible to just spend your time very slowly maxing your stats before doing anything else, and then just stomp through the game. But with how slow the stat gains would be, you'd be spending a good 80+ hours just doing that, I would think.

So in the end it's up to how you want to approach the game. Do you want to focus more time on farming early to boost your stats higher to make the exploration easier? Or do you want a challenge, and explore before you really pump your stats up at all? Of course there's always the balanced path, where you focus on both equally and try to keep the game at a point where it provides a challenge, but isn't overly frustrating. Though with the fact that progressing means you unlock better farming methods and shit, I find it better to try and push further into the game as soon as you can, so that you can make your farming easier and thus increase your stats faster.

Like last night, I just unlocked the ducks, which you can release into your field when growing rice and they'll eat insects and weeds to help prevent your rice from being damaged. So I never focused too hard on having perfect yields, but now that I have them, I can start to focus on that more since it'll be less of a headache.