I’m a huge fan of simulation games. I lost so much of my time to games like Jurassic World Evolution, Animal Crossing, and City Skylines. All of which vary in genre, but it’s with farming games like Stardew Valley that I have spent the least amount of time playing. I never really tried out farming simulators before Stardew, as I was focused on so much, but when I saw it on sale for Nintendo Switch years ago, I decided to jump in and see if it was worth the hype. It was then that I lost hundreds of hours and found a newfound appreciation for the genre. So naturally, when I first heard of Moonlight Peaks, a farming simulator with a mystical twist developed by Little Chicken, I was very interested. Now, after spending some time with it, I am very happy to say it’s a great farming adventure with only a few minor issues.
Welcome to the Valley
Moonlight Peaks starts with creating your own character, and the character customization is pretty detailed, letting you customize nearly everything I would want. This includes things like the eye color being the same or different for each eye, choosing the accessories I could have on, and even what clothes I would start with. It really made me feel as if this character I’m creating is my very own. After this, the game gives a small explanation of why my character decided to move to Moonlight Peaks, and while a bit lackluster, it does provide a solid enough reason to move to such a beautiful place. The second I walked into the town of Moonlight Peaks, I was surprised by how varied the world is. Each resident of the town is either a vampire, werewolf, or something else entirely. It gave everyone their own unique distinctions, like the vampires and werewolves being able to shape-shift and move around the town, and the witches having made spells to help everyone. This really makes this place feel like a community rather than just any other place, especially later in the game when more places opened up, and people either start moving in or become accessible.
As expected from a farming simulator, Moonlight Peaks throws you into a world ready to plant and grow all kinds of crops, but the twist of this game is that it’s all done during the night since my character is a vampire and they don’t tend to do so well with sunlight. It really gave the game such a unique feel, as everything has such a calm and relaxing art style. One minor complaint I have, however, is how the game has charming models and icons for all the characters, but the character portraits are a bit underwhelming. They’re not bad by any means, but I enjoyed the art style found in-game a bit more.
Midnight Farming
Moonlight Peaks comes with a four-month calendar, each month representing a different season, meaning some crops will grow during the Spring but die off in the Fall. But a small change I really liked was what happens to crops whenever a new season starts. In other farming games I’ve played, when a new season starts, all crops that aren’t viable for that specific month are automatically dead and have to be cleared to make room for new seeds. But in Moonlight Peaks, I noticed that if a crop is close to harvesting as a new season starts, it’s automatically ready to be picked up.
The game also had some fun distractions to do around the world, such as Nokturna, a small card game that had me going up against a few residents, fishing, catching all kinds of bugs, and even rounding up one of the hundreds of hidden creatures around the world. There was also the museum that had me donating all kinds of unique oddities I found while exploring both the overworld and the mines. If I had to pick one, I had the most enjoyment with the spells. Later on, I unlocked a wand that at first only had one spell to use, but after buying more, the gameplay really started to change. Spells can vary, such as refilling my watering can without needing to go to any water source, moving buildings, and even helping me harvest crops. It really helped make the game feel more unique and also cut down on certain aspects of farming games that many consider time-consuming.
A Dry Harvest
Moonlight Peaks was overall a great experience I barely had any issues with. There was one time, however, when it froze. It was during one of the game’s many festivals that I noticed I could play Nokturna with a villager. After my first turn ended, the game froze, and after trying to leave or move onto the next turn, I had to restart the game to fix it. Besides the freeze, there are a few minor complaints I have with the gameplay that only slightly affected my playthrough. For starters, when breaking a rock or a tree, Moonlight Peaks doesn’t show how much is left until they’re destroyed, which, at first, is fine if I’m doing only one or two trees. Later on in the game, however, some tasks or upgrades required me to collect hundreds of materials. I would have appreciated it if there were an indicator of how much I had left so these tedious sections would feel a lot shorter.
Another smaller issue I had was with cooking food. Each time you do so, you play a small minigame, which is fun at first, but the game required me to manually select each meal separately. This meant if I had multiple of the same crop and wanted to make them all into the same food, as I did with a bunch of onion and tomatoes trying to make gazpacho, I would have to select them one at a time. This turned into a giant loop of selecting a meal, doing a minigame, then repeating the process over and over again. If Moonlight Peaks had an option to select multiple and possibly have a harder version of the minigame to balance out the process, it would’ve made me cook more often instead of just selling the crops to avoid the tedious waste of time.
A Wonderful Time
I had a lot of fun with Moonlight Peaks; the farming and mining mechanics are familiar to those who have played previous farming sims before, but the new additions, like spells, allow it to stand out and cut down on some of the tedious aspects. However, the game still has some areas that can be improved, such as cooking meals or having no indicator when cutting down trees or mining rocks. Overall, though, Moonlight Peaks is a great game with so much content to keep you satisfied and busy, and by the time you realize it, you’ll be playing well into the night, turning into a vampire just like in the game.
Disclaimer: XSeed Games provided a PC (Steam) copy of Moonlight Peaks for review purposes.
