Farmer Sim Switch review

I have always been a huge fan of games like Stardew Valley and Minecraft for the farming aspect and self-designated my role on our family Minecraft server as the farmer, so you would probably be surprised to learn I have never played a farming sim in my life. With my current trend of genre-busting out of my shell, I spotted Farmer Sim on sale for a poultry (pun intended) $4 and thought I should give it a go. With the release of the widely popular Farming Simulator 23 releasing on May 23rd, I thought I would spend $4 before investing in a full-price new release and quickly learned 2 things.

The first thing is that Farmer Sim has nothing to do with that franchise, but secondly, despite being a budget version of the hit farming sim, there’s a bit of enjoyment to be had in Farmer Sim on Switch… as long as your expectations are managed.

It aint much but it’s honest work

Loading into the game, you are given a very brief tutorial about hitching up a plow to plow, seed, and harvest a field. after you sell your first trailer load of grain, you are left to your own devices and it all gets a bit confusing from there. The UI is large and distracting, and most actions you take boil down to a text prompt with a big red cross and an “ok” button but it’s difficult to tell what you have selected due to the UI design. I remember fuelling my tractor became an exercise in frustration as the giant prompt asked me to refuel and I unknowingly closed out the window several times, forcing me to drive around the fuel pump again to prompt the fuelling process. It’s small things like this that hold back Farmer Sim on Nintendo Switch and make it a sometimes frustrating experience.

The core gameplay loop is growing corn of wheat, harvesting it and selling it, and then upgrading your machines. One major problem I found is there are no real stats on new gear and stats are reduced to a corn or wheat icon above the item to tell you what they are used for but don’t really say much else. A seasoned Farm Sim player might not have a problem with this, but as a newcomer to farming life, I found it confusing and not very beginner friendly.

Wheat as far as the eyes can see (or switch can render)

The game runs at a fixed and smooth framerate even when driving into the town to sell your goods. The machines look detailed and varied with a decent poly count but when it comes to your crops or effects like seeding and plowing, the game can be a mixed bag. Textures crudely pop onto the field in front of your plow, and seeding looks like your combine is smoking. Textures in the town look a little rough and crops are 2D sprites that simply disappear when you run your harvester over them. The game has a day and night cycle but when nighttime hits, I found myself running into indestructible fences despite having my brightness higher than normal. Sounds are terrible with a low-quality engine loop noise that doesn’t really work, so I played with the volume right down while listening to podcasts.

Entry level Farming

I did find the process of farming and selling somewhat relaxing and despite its grinding gameplay loop, there was enjoyment to be had, especially at the $4 price point you can’t really go wrong. The gameplay did get old and during my playthrough, I found that I could only farm Corn and Wheat. Managing livestock is rather basic, managing to fit on a single screen the display shows how many cows and animals you have, and if you want to buy some more, you simply click a plus button. There seems to be no limit to livestock numbers and the pens only show a fixed amount. That same livestock screen ticks over profits occasionally, you click to collect the profits and don’t need to take them anywhere. You don’t have to feed the animals or do much with them for that matter, but they generate a tidy profit to upgrade your tools. It can be tedious but also relaxing, and it feels rewarding when you sell your harvest at the local depot.

I wish there was more incentive to upgrade your machinery, and that machinery had more details about why you need to spend $125k on a new ute, instead of fumbling around clunky menus trying to find out if your new plow is larger or does something new. You can automate your machinery on your fields though, so multiple tractors can plow fields while your combine seeds and harvests. Each task will require you to switch to the proper gear before driving onto your field and clicking “auto” but it’s a nice incentive to have multiple fields ticking over while multiple machines tend to the farms.

Room to grow

There’s fun to be had in Farmer Sim if you go into it with the right mindset. It’s a lite version of what it could have been, a demo of sorts. The game might be best thought of as the days of old “Shareware” titles without the sharing part. A low-cost entry-level introduction to the much larger Farming Simulator series and a great way to dip your toes in the Farming Sim pool. If that’s the case, it certainly whet my appetite to try something with a bit more meat on its bones and I have pre-ordered my copy of Farming Simulator 2023 because I want more… The only problem is I won’t find that here in Farmer Sim.