Worth Life was a game that immediately caught my eye as it was worked on by some people with ties to the Harvest Moon games. I wanted to see what it would be like if someone could suitably mix Harvest Moon’s style with the energy of an action-RPG and Worth Life is the result of that. In this Worth Life review, I will detail why I think the game falls short of the mark despite being filled to the brim with great concepts.

Worth Life Review – Worth A Go

Title: Worth Life

Publisher: HAKAMA

Players: 1

Genre: RPG, Action, Fantasy, Life, Farming

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: July 14, 2022

The Core

Without delving into the story of the game too much the core concepts of Worth Life are its adventure RPG gameplay, and the addition of farming, fishing, and even renting mechanics to help complete quests. My main goal was to complete quests for villagers but those quests would often require me to farm a specific crop, fish for a certain catch, or build someone a house to rent back alongside a pond for them to catch fish.

These are all pretty neat and I do enjoy the automated material gain that renting provides but beyond this, the game doesn’t really have much to offer.

One of my biggest issues is how repetitive the gameplay loop is. Go to a new place, fight monsters in the first area, go to a last area and defeat every monster to open the temple, and fulfil requests to restore light to the crystals.

What’s worse is how repetitive the requests are. Find something someone lost, find a use for this tool, here’s a vague description of food I want now go make it, take these seeds and grow something, by the third level I was already growing tired of doing the same things.

On top of that, the game is VERY hands-off, almost too hands-off. Sometimes instructions are very vague and there’s never any indication given of what I’m supposed to do. Largely I enjoy that Worth Life doesn’t hold my hand the entire time but sometimes it’s just a bit too hands-off.

Intriguing Elements

I do quite enjoy some of the concepts used in the game. One of my favorites is the spark system, it feels so natural for abilities to be gained by sparking when the need arises and it was a nice way to add in more and more concepts over time slowly.

Appeal is also an interesting addition to the game. Weighing up which appeals I should keep equipped and which I should sacrifice was a fun part of the gameplay. Gaining appeals felt like a big deal since any new one could be a real game-changer and blow my strategy to pieces.

Although I felt it never paid off the relationship system was a nice addition. Having friends in various villages who appreciated certain gifts helped with the world-building quite a bit. Bringing some strange new vegetable back to the farming girl in my hometown always drove home the adventure aspect of the game to me.

The Art

I love what this game does artistically. It uses a lot of colors to separate each place and the backgrounds and settings have enough care put into them to make them unique. Even the character designs are very good with most people being somewhat exaggerated to make them stick out that bit more. The enemy designs were largely pretty plain but some of them are clever and well-done.

The art direction in this game is pretty much perfect for the type of game it is. An action-adventure game with heavy fantasy elements should embrace a more colorful and creative approach over attempted realism, especially on a budget.

Shortcomings

Some of the additional elements of this game feel seriously unimportant or just not enjoyable. The fishing mini-game is as mundane as any fishing mini-game ever, seriously has any game ever got this right? Farming is only useful for one or two quests and then you barely even need to think of it again, and the synthesis stuff is slightly too complex for its own good and locking a weapon to a specific element so quickly is a choice I wouldn’t have made.

The game’s combat is also quite bare bones, for the most part avoiding attacks is almost impossible to time so all guns blazing is the only method for success. The bow-and-arrow is a potentially useful weapon but I never felt the need to use it that much when I could instead focus on improving my swords.

Worth Life Review – Last Word on Gaming Viewpoint

Worth Life is an adventurous game that brings a lot of fun ideas to the table that other action-adventure RPGs could learn from. It does however fall short of the mark with a repetitive gameplay loop, bare-bone combat, and that blasted fishing mini-game prevent it from reaching its potential

Worth Life Review Verdict

6/10

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