While Monster Harvest doesn’t break ground with anything it’s trying to do in regards to blending genres, it does prove itself as an enticing homage to its influences. But the battle system is extremely simple, and disappointing. These different planimals work a little bit like Pokémon, inasmuch as they follow you around and will battle monsters for you. You can mutate each of these plants with different slime for different results. There are different seeds to collect, some of which are only able to be planted during one of Monster Harvest’s three seasons, with different seeds yielding different plants and therefore different monsters. Instead of collecting monsters-called planimals-you have to grow them, enhancing your crops with different types of slime. I thought that the farming sim, then, was just going to be a means to collect your monsters. On top of this, your character runs out of energy so quickly and has to rest so often, especially in the first few hours, it’s just not fun.

You can almost immediately see the high dollar signs and the long grind ahead. Except everything in Monster Harvest feels incredibly grindy, and it does little to ease you into the game. It even starts you out on a plot that’s full of rocks and trees to trim down. You grow crops to sell so you can upgrade your house and your player’s inventory, and buy better tools-all of the staples you would expect.

Most of Monster Harvest revolves around your farm. While it definitely has a Pokemon feel, I’d say that Monster Harvest leans more towards Stardew Valley-but a basic, pared back version with none of the charm. There are two basic components to Monster Harvest: the farm sim, and the monster collecting and fighting.

But the execution in Monster Harvest leaves a lot to be desired. The concept had me immediately excited: and to be truthful, it still has some potential. Monster Harvest is a farming life and monster collecting game, a sort of mash-up between Stardew Valley (or Harvest Moon) and Pokémon.

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