I still remember the joy I felt playing Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands for the first time.
It was my second Harvest Moon game, the sequel to the introductory game that had sent me down a spiral of FOMO that led to me running an NES emulator on my laptop until I could get my hands on a DS so I could finally play with my sister and her friend.
I’d been hyped for months, and it didn’t let me down. There was so much to do. I’d push the limits of my bedtime, stretching every moment so I could do just a little bit more. I would ranch well into the night, hoping I wouldn’t pass out around 2 a.m. and wake up with limited stamina for the next day.
Both in-game and in real life.
I developed a morning routine of farm chores and planned my afternoons around where I’d find different villagers, which materials I needed to collect, and what my next big goal was.
Since then, I’ve had a hard time finding a farming sim that could hold my attention the same way.
I stopped playing Pioneers of Olive Town because I couldn’t get through more than a few days without my Switch giving up on its own existence. Even Friends of Mineral Town, the one I was so excited for thanks to guest appearances in Sunshine Islands, couldn’t hold my attention longer than about an in-game week or so per session.
Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns was close, but even though I wished for longer days, I definitely didn’t reach anywhere near close to 10 in-game years of playtime. I didn’t make lists, plan crop cycles and loops, or track treasures I’d found.
Now, though, things are different, and I’ve been getting that fresh farming sim excitement all over again with Starsand Island.
What you'll read about
What Starsand Island is about
If you’ve played farming sims before, the premise of Starsand Island will probably sound familiar.
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Your character has become disillusioned with city life and longs to return to the idyllic farming life they knew growing up. When you return, you discover you can inherit your grandpa’s old farm, an overgrown plot with a rundown cabin. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to restore the land, rebuild your home, and revitalize the community around you.
Yeah. But hey—the formula works for a reason, right?
Where Starsand Island does expand on the traditional farming sim genre, however, is how you do all that restoring and rebuilding.
It borrows from other genres, especially survival crafter games, to introduce a web of systems to keep you busy. You’ll need different crafting tables and time-based maker stations to craft materials and tools for your farm (and to build up your home!).
You also get a lot of freedom in how you want to play. You can edit your house exactly how you want with a detailed system rather reminiscent of The Sims 4, you can go explore the wilderness and fend off wild critters in the mine, you can start raising the ranch of your dreams.
I started off with farming and ranching, naturally, though I did learn pretty quickly I’d need adventuring to get the materials I needed to make my farming and ranching gear!
Overall, it reminds me of a mix of systems from The Sims, Palia, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, along with its Harvest Moon base. Some are subtle reminders, and some are not—like the special vendor who shows up by boat with exclusive wares and a red fox on the sign, say.
What I love about Starsand Island so far
Along with the character creation, where you can create and dress up your own anime-style avatar, the overall aesthetic and energy of the game, and the oodles of cute furnishings to collect, there’s one standout feature of Starsand Island for me so far:
The animals.
They’ve definitely become my favourite part of the game. They’re adorable, they’re squishy, and they do wonderful little dances when you pet them every day.
So far, I’ve only really gotten into raising rabbits, ducks, and chickens. Larger animals like cows and sheep, which are traditional Harvest Moon staples, are actually locked behind a multi-stage progressive quest line. It’s definitely a change, but I like it—it gives you the option to just go for it, rather than having to wait until Fall 3 Year 1 for a character to suddenly show up with a cow for you.
Your animals also all have unique duties around your farm, and will help you do things like weed your crops and protect them from bugs.
While there are basic animals you can buy from the ranch shop, there’s also an element of RNG involved in breeding your farm animals. Whenever your animals breed, even if they’re the basic ones, there’s a random chance they produce a different appearance for you.
Ducks, for example, seem to have four possible looks, and the rarer ones look like they also work more around your farm.
It doesn’t seem overly complicated as a system, either, which is nice. You’ll need to have:
- A male and female animal in a pen together
- At least one open pen slot
- Both animals within their breeding window (which you can find in their info)
There’s a chance you’ll wake up to a new little friend on your farm.
Starsand Island also does a good job of introducing you to the joys of late game early on, which I found was a great motivator to get into the systems of the game. I can raise alpacas to ride or splurge at the car dealership for a faster way to get around the island? No problem, let me just jump right in!
What could be better in Starsand Island
Aside from bugs and lag, which are always going to happen in an early access game, there’s one major speedbump that I’ve run into:
Money. It’s not exactly easy to come by, especially in the quantities you need to expand your land or buy yourself a home template.
So far, what I’ve found to be the best way to earn money is completing quests and requests for the townsfolk. You don’t seem to get a lot from your crops, and you definitely don’t get a lot from the mine, which has historically been my way of cheesing Harvest Moon games.
Breeding animals has also been surprisingly profitable. I never really got into breeding animals in Harvest Moon games because unless it was a system like Friends of Mineral Town where I literally had to so I could max out their happiness, it just wasn’t worth it. It took up a lot of time, it cost a lot of lost income in the meantime, and you just didn’t get that much for the animals when you sold them.
Not in Starsand Island. Between how easy (and sometimes unintentional) the breeding system is and how much animals are worth to sell, it’s actually kind of worth it!
What I haven’t tried yet
Ironically, the one thing I haven’t really gotten into yet? Designing.
Usually, decorating is the one thing I love the most in cozy games, and I’m particularly excited for how detailed the system is in Starsand Island.
But if my experience with games like Harvest Moon has taught me anything, it’s that the early days are all about starting up. The decorating and organizing comes after, once the farm is thriving.
And if Starsand Island keeps giving me that “just one more day” feeling, I’m sure I’ll get there sooner rather than later!
YOUR TURN
Have you tried Starsand Island? What did you think?
