Fields of Mistria early access impressions — Sailor moon goes farming

Fields of Mistria took the internet by storm in 2024 with its Sailor Moon-esque art style and blend of magic and farming. I was definitely one of the fans, as I was enchanted by the vibrant character designs and whimsical sprite artwork. The game has seen a few major updates since then, each edging the game closer to completeness with anticipated features like heart events and more dungeon levels. However, it’s the recent 3rd major update in v0.14.0 that has made me feel comfortable enough in recommending Fields of Mistria to players who were wondering if they should hold back until the full release. That’s not to say Fields of Mistria hasn’t been a substantial enough experience to play in the past year, but you won’t be hitting much of a brick wall if you play it in the state it’s in right now.

I’ve had two sessions with Fields of Mistria; the first was when I purchased it at Christmas last year, and the second was when the 3rd major update came out. We’ll stick to talking about Mistria in its current state, but I’ll note that from the start I vibed with what Mistria had on offer and what it promised in the future. I can happily look back at this opinion and agree that Mistria will be one to look for when it gets its full release in the next year or so. If you’re still not convinced by the end of this preview though, I’m pleased to speculate that Fields of Mistria won’t be stuck in Early Access for much longer, with the devs now gearing up for version 1.0.

I won’t sit here and try and tell you Fields of Mistria is one of a kind and revamps the farming sim formula, because it doesn’t. What you’ll find here is a classic Stardew Valley experience with a lot of the same gameplay mechanics you can expect from the genre. But this is in no way a slight on Fields of Mistria because it does a lot of things better than Stardew and does it all with a beautiful fresh coat of paint and a lot of fun and unique things to do. Farming sims are normally copy and pastes of each other, but it’s what a game does with these foundations that certifies them as a good variation of the genre. 

In Fields of Mistria you’ve travelled to this quaint town that’s been ravaged by a series of earthquakes. When you arrive, you’ll meet the mayor’s kids, Adeline and Eiland, who want to restore glory to Mistria. With their help and yours, you are to start your new life on a dilapidated farm and aid the townsfolk in improving its reputation through repairing and upgrading buildings, using produce you’ve foraged and produced on your farm. The town of Mistria consists of your typical bustling town square, your farm, mines, a beach, and multiple areas where you can fish and forage. There’s a lot to see and do here, and Mistria is generous in providing the players with a map where you can see where every building is and where villagers are currently located. If you’re familiar with farming sims, then you know the first few days of your time at Mistria will be full of tutorials and finding your bearings in your new home. 

Straight from the get-go you’ll realize Mistria is a magical place, as you receive visions of a dragon called Caldarus that needs your help. This side story is linked to the mines, and with each section you descend into, you’ll get a new magic spell that aids you in your farming journey. This game lacks the essential sprinklers that help you make your farm into a capitalist empire, but this is matched by a rain spell that calls a momentary rainstorm that waters all your crops. Spells cost slots to cast, with the more intricate spells costing more, but they regenerate quite moderately without making them broken. At the time of this review, this storyline is incomplete, but I’m definitely intrigued to learn more about it in its full release.

The story missions of Mistria will have you, Adeline, and various townsfolk recovering, updating, and decorating buildings that feed directly into the town rank system. You’ll be able to increase your town rank through missions, but also through various other activities, like donating to the museum, descending into the mines, and helping villagers with optional quests. At the moment, there are 70 town rank levels you can unlock; each level gives you a small reward, like some cash or a furniture item, but every ten or so ranks you’ll unlock a new story mission. This gives Mistria a smooth gameplay cycle where you find you’re always working towards something. You definitely won’t be speedrunning this game with how much stuff there is to do and how grindy the story missions can be. In the latest update, bypassing the seal on the lava levels of the mines requires many different gems and ingots, whilst other missions ask for loads of wood. My biggest piece of advice is to not drift towards the grind and just enjoy the natural flow of the game.

Before we dive into the gameplay, it’s crucial to note that Fields of Mistria has its own spin on levelling up skills—your typical mining, farming, cooking, etc. You level up each skill by participating in its respective activity, and with each level, you can create and do more stuff. For example, you’ll be able to cook basic recipes at the start and craft simple furniture, but more advanced recipes will require you to be at a specific level in that skill. Whilst you do these activities, you’ll also obtain the currency, essence. Essence can be used at the Caldarus shrine on your farm which unlocks different abilities for each skill tree. For example, you can decrease the time it takes to craft a piece of furniture or increase the chances of finding a rare artifact underwater. These were fun incentives to try your hand at all the skills on offer and make your time easier as you get deeper into the game.

We’ll start off with the classic mines and combat of Fields of Mistria. Currently there are 4 upgrades you can make to your weapons and 4 areas of the mines you can explore, with one more to be implemented into the game. Each section of the mines will get harder with different enemy variations, ore, forageables, fish, and critters to collect. With how grindy I found story missions in Fields of Mistria, I found myself revisiting each section of the mines to get resources, instead of completing one and never thinking about them again. I did find combat in the game to be very easy, with no need for stamina items to do my daily 5 floors. I only found it got more challenging as I got to the lava floors, as the enemy types were more aggressive and paired with lava pools you need your watering can to carve a path out of. There are also plenty of reasons to go back to get unique fish and bugs and to find unique artifacts, but overall, the mines are a solid experience.

Speaking of collecting, Fields of Mistria has an abundance of things to find and donate to the local museum. Not everything you find is eligible, however, but you can see if it is by looking at the item description and seeing if it has a checkbox next to it. Donations are grouped into various themes, like river fish and sunken artifacts; just think of the community bundles from Stardew. For each bundle you complete, you get a reward in the form of furniture sets, recipes, and resources. There’s not much to say here, as it is your standard bug and fish catching. Artefacts are a bit easier to find than in some games as they’ll be strictly grouped to specific areas so you can grind rarer ones in specific spots instead of running around the entire map.

Cooking is deceptively important in Fields of Mistria. In your typical farming sim, cooking is a superfluous  activity I can normally take or leave. It’s often included in 100% completion, but I always find selling produce is much faster and easier than combining different things to make a cooked meal. Mistria takes this pre-notion and makes it more relevant and accessible than in most farming sims. Especially in the early game, cooking can be a great way to earn money, as you’ll be given recipes that often require one or two ingredients that always sell for more than the raw product. You’ve got your sliced turnips and trail mix that give you that extra bit of cash and double up as improving your skill. It’s even better if you spend the time getting flour, butter, and other ingredients, as you can make some pricey meals. With the quirks you get from the essence statue, cooking can become even more useful, as you can pick up perks that give you a chance of dropping extra produce when you cook a recipe, or they can turn into universally liked items that you can gift to villagers. Cooking is by far the most revamped mechanic in Fields of Mistria and is one to look out for when you boot up your save.

It’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of your farm: the actual farming. You’ll be able to plonk your crop fields wherever you like when you get access to the shovel, as every tile on your farm is tillable. This makes your farmland extremely customizable; I’ve seen some beautiful patterns that people create to make their crop fields look aesthetic. There you’ll plant a good variety of seasonal crops and make bank. The spells you obtain from Caldarus will mainly be farming-oriented spells, like the rain spell I mentioned earlier, so farming can be streamed pretty quickly. It still would be nice to have sprinklers in additional updates, but I never tend to go crazy with crop fields anyway.

The other half of farming is your livestock. When you get enough money and resources, you can buy coops and barns with animals to inhabit them. The sprite work for the animals is adorable, and there’s a fun range of livestock to have on your farm, from chickens to capybaras. Fields of Mistria even take their livestock appearances even further with a breeding system that allows you to breed different colored animals. Colors are ranked in tiers that correspond with rarity, and you can mix and match tiers to get better and rarer results. For example, two tier 1 cows would breed a tier 2 cow, and this goes all the way up to tier 6. I’ve seen a lot of players have tons of fun with this, as the game allows for some pretty funky colors, including blueberry and strawberry cows! Your neighbor Hayden has a daycare system that you can put your extra livestock in at no extra cost, so mix and match to your heart’s content. You can also give your animals some cute accessories like little hats and collars, so you’ll have a cute aesthetic farm in no time.

Caring for animals is a breeze if you’re well versed in the genre. You can let them outside to enjoy the sun; you can feed them using hay or grass outside, and you can pet them daily to increase friendship level. Mistria also has a cute play feature where you can give animals an item they can play on, like a seesaw for fowl and a ball for barn animals. I hope they add more stuff like this in the future so I can make my own small animal paradise.

Now, Fields of Mistria wouldn’t be a farming sim if it didn’t have customization down to a T, and I’m happy to say it definitely delivers. From the start of the game, you can design your own character with a ton of options to choose from to make your own whimsical little goober. Clothing is also done extremely well in this game, as once you obtain a piece of clothing, you unlock it and different color variations, so you don’t need to spend a fortune on customizing your character. The game also gives you a group of preset outfit options so you can style your seasonal outfits and simply click the preset in order to dress your character up in that outfit—akin to the wand in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

There are also plenty of furniture options for your house, including a range of furniture sets and clutter items. These can be crafted if you have the recipe or bought at the Saturday market from Merry. Again, like clothing, once you buy one recipe, you unlock it and several other color variations. The furniture on offer can range from whimsical to cottagecore, so there’s something for everyone here. You can also upgrade the size of your house, add rooms, and even add an upstairs thanks to the latest patch! I spent a year in Fields of Mistria, testing the waters and focusing on story missions whilst trying everything Mistria had to offer. However, I didn’t spend a lot of time decorating, so I can see decoration-fueled players having an absolute blast here and pouring hours into this game by just customizing their farm and house.

Whilst writing this review, I was eagerly waiting to discuss the residents of Mistria, as the cast on offer may be one of the strongest I’ve seen in a while in the farming sim genre. This is due to not only the character writing and the likeability of these characters, but also how they interact, which is so refreshing and natural. Normally in farming sims, characters will have strict schedules, and after a few in-game years, you know where they’ll be. Characters will stand in one spot, stare into nothingness, and then move on. This was completely fine until Fields of Mistria showed me the potential of what they could be like. The residents of Mistria have a more diverse day schedule that is very different day to day, so unless you use the map, you’ll be hard-pressed to know where they are. When you do find them, they are often never alone; instead, they are talking to other residents or doing tasks like taking inventory stock at the general store or meeting up for a drink in the inn. After one in-game year in Mistria, I can outstandingly say I never encountered the same dialogue when talking to residents every day. Despite not loving every single character, the promise of new dialogue would influence me to speak to them when passing by. My only gripe is that they talk about the museum a lot. It’s cool that they will comment on stuff you donate, but it gets a bit annoying when they seem to comment on every single item that’s donated. However, the pros outweigh this singular con by a mile, as you have Friday nights at the Inn, a weekly event where every resident in the village will come to the Inn to do different activities. A group will be having a D&D session, another will have a book club, and so forth. They’ll change every few weeks once you’ve exhausted the dialogue from each group. The residents of Mistria just feel so natural to get to know and were a highlight of my time with the game.

Mistria is also not lacking in the romance and friendship system department. At the moment, we can access up to 8 heart events, but there will be 12 in total, with marriage and kids promised in the future. If you don’t focus all your time on romance, then it’ll be a while before you can romance your favorite NPC. I pursued Balor for about one in-game year and got to his 6-heart event. When you reach 8 hearts, you can romance villagers and engage with the dating system. One of Mistria’s flaws was the lack of romance before the third major update, and even though we have some crumbs now, it’s still far from complete. Currently, once you reach 8 hearts, you can start to date the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. You can trigger dates can be by giving a villager a date item, found in specific locations or at specific festivals. This triggers a date, and after spending time with them, you get a cute Polaroid to commemorate the event. Dating isn’t a feature in most farming sims; you normally have one or two romance heart events, and then you get married, so this was a refreshing take on the mechanic. Currently, you can date as many people as you want, but the devs have stated that you’ll only be able to marry one candidate. Also, it has become standard by now, but I’ll always praise a game for having both queer and straight options.

If you’re asexual or are not particularly interested in pursuing relationships, Mistria has you covered there too, as you can ask residents to be your best friend. You can’t go on dates with best friends, but instead of romance events at 8+ hearts, you’ll instead get best friend events. Again, Mistria goes that extra mile to make sure everyone feels included in the gameplay.

Finally, we’ll touch upon some other important features such as festivals and other fun stuff. Festivals are dotted around in each season, but sadly there’s not a lot of them. Making a game a universal experience is fine, but no Halloween or Christmas was a major letdown. The end of the year kind of just happened, and that was it; roll on next year. It needs a bigger send-off for your first in-game year, so it really feels like you’re reflecting on a long year of progress. Take, for example, Stardew’s Christmas-esque winter festival and the fact you can’t plant crops in winter; it makes the arrival of spring that much more fantastic. The festivals themselves are fine, nothing really that stands out. You have two festivals that are practically the same, where you need to collect a unique currency, and whoever gets the most at the festival wins, and your typical animal contests. I hope we either see more additions to the festival catalog or revamped ones so they feel more exciting.

You also have the weekly Saturday market where 4 vendors will come to sell their wares. You have furniture, clothes, hairstyles and bakery/café recipes. Each stall is run by an NPC that you can unlock hearts for, which is really nice. In the latest update you can complete a story mission that grants you two more vendors, so the Saturday market has become a staple event of my weeks in Mistria. The unique dialogue from each villager is also a nice touch.

Finally, I just want to comment on how beautiful the game looks in all seasons. Each season is distinct with its own music and color palette, and it’s matched with the residents adorning unique seasonal outfits. It has that retro feel that makes Fields of Mistria all the more cozy.

Fields of Mistria may be advancing towards its full release, but I had to get in there before this to just promote how good of a product it is before it even becomes available on console and to a general audience. Through consistent updates and promises for more features, like marriage, Mistria feels so full of life already. You are going to find your standard farming sim here, but that’s not a bad thing. Mistria does almost everything perfectly and plenty of things better than its predecessors, with only a few nitpicks here and there. We may be looking at one of the greats of the farming sim genre in the future.

You can purchase Fields of Mistria in Early Access on Steam for $13.99!