It makes me sad to give this game a negative review, and I am willing to change it once the game addresses some SERIOUS problems. I was looking forward to this game for so long and was honestly so hyped for its release. However, this game should not have been released. I mean it's atrociously buggy and lacks so much depth.

Pros

• The game has a lot of potential to be cute. The aesthetic is adorable, and the game play itself, once optimized, will be enjoyable.
  
• The animals are cute

Cons

• The economy is BROKEN. The items that you make sell for a marginal amount more than the raw materials, and those don't even sell well. Most players are broke, and can't afford the blue prints to progress to the next quest.
  
• By the time people do earn enough for blueprints, there aren't enough resources to craft the materials. I am not someone who shies away from a bit of a grind, but man is it a slog.
  
• This game was advertised to be a "cozy pastoral" game. This game was, for all intents and purposes, a dress-up, chill, Stardew Valley with emphasis on relationship building and homesteading, all while looking cute. Except... THERE ARE VERY FEW CLOTHING OPTIONS and the clothing options they do offer are SO EXPENSIVE you can't even afford them until end game. To put this into perspective, a blueprint for a robot that is supposed to automate your whole damn farm (keyword is supposed to, more on that later), is 55k. A black shirt from the clothing store, like a plain old black long sleeve shirt, is... you guessed it... 55K!
  
• The backstories of the NPCs are laughable-- there aren't any. You have 0 draw to any of the characters. They all just repeat the most random lines to you, and honestly most of them are just rude? It's pretty wild. There is more depth of character in a wilting plant than there are in any of the characters in the game.
  
• There are SO MANY BUGS. I mean... SO MANY. Much more than any early access game should have. The animals get stuck, the robots get stuck, the game freezes after opening chests, the walls will randomly displace after exiting the game, paint disappears, fences prevent animal pathing, etc... I mean the list goes on.
  
  Overall, I can't express the disappointment I feel about this game. If I hadn't already sunk so many hours into it, hoping for more than just QoL fixes from the devs, I would have refunded the game. I have so much love for the devs, this being their first game and all, but man oh man does this feel like an absolute waste of my money. I'm so disappointed, and I am hopeful they fix the game soon, but until then it just doesn't feel playable.

This game is actually so good. It's kind of a mix of the best aspects of every major farming/life sim, but they also very much made it their own. I bought it a week ago. I initially played it on Gamepass to try it out. Loved it, and bought it on Steam. Sadly, there was no cross save functionality, and I couldn't convert the .msav to .sav to make it work. There is a big version mismatch between Gamepass and Steam, so if you are on the fence, I recommend Steam. Especially because they are adding multiplayer and mod support later this year (see the roadmap).

The game is very new, it had only been out for a few days when I bought it. So there are some bugs, of the 'to be expected' variety. Some game breaking, others just minor annoyances. However, I have never seen a company push out updates and bugfixes so quickly before. They are constantly asking for our feedback in the discord and making updates based on what we tell them or report bug-wise.

So, on to the actual game. It is so fun for me. I love farming games, and they did a great job with the farming aspects, for sure (get bees asap if you want to make money farming). The characters are cute and have certain little traits that feel somewhat individual. I would say that part could definitely use work. They feel very much like NPCs, but serve their purpose at the bare minimum level, I suppose.

The animal breeding/crossbreeding/trait system is really cool. It is RNG, so you're not going to really see x+y=z. You're going to have to keep trying to get what you want, and the traits are a whole other breeding system from just the breeds of the animals.

Building seems to be the buggiest part for me right now, but I have every confidence that they are working on those issues. They have actually been working a lot through Chinese New Year, which I think shows how much they care about the success of their game launch. Aside from the bugs, building is really cool and I'm excited to see what they do with it. You can definitely make a home that feels uniquely your own, or multiple homes. Whatever floats your boat. (You can build a houseboat too btw :D)

Fishing. It's just fishing lol. Nothing crazy, you cast your line and reel in a fish. Some are slightly harder than others. It's nothing super exciting, but there are a lot of different fish in different areas of the map.

Mounts/Vehicles are pretty neat. There are a quite a few of them.
Some you buy, some you build, some you raise. So a good bit of options for traversing the island faster.

Character customization - Have seen much worse, could be better and feel more personal. I expect this is something they are adding new content to, I think they recently made a post about it actually.

My overall review would be that this game scratches a very specific itch that, in my opinion, no other game has done since Stardew Valley. Many have tried, many have failed. This might be the first one that succeeds.

I have been playing for a week and have 96 hours on Steam. About 10 on Gamepass prior to that. So I have put in a lot of work already. I'm basically at end game, but even 96 hours is way more than I get out of most massive titles these days. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot for me to do in the game, and I don't plan to stop. I have not pursued a romantic partner. There are still several breeds of animals I haven't even unlocked yet, and when building is working better on Controller, I plan to go hard on that and build a masterpiece farm. You end up with around 3 different pieces of land you can build on that are decent sized by the end. So the hope is that they continue to expand on this world they have created for us, and their roadmap and updates indicate that to be their plan.

(I would also like to add that most people probably won't progress this quickly. I had a lot of help from the Discord community, and I already had a plan for how to make a lot of money due to playing similar games so often)

Okay I'm 130 hours in and I want to go over a lot.

First of all, the road map SCARES ME. At first I was like WELL It's early access...so it's not finished yet! It's fine. So what the starsand kickstarter, and starsands entire YOUTUBE and the DEMO showed was a COMPLEX social and relationship system. And "EVERY ISLANDER HAS A STORY."

Now, hold on a moment. Theirs a roadmap for a handful of months andddddd....their focus is...some themed outfits and furniture...? Uh...Ok...ay..... "Expand NPC voice content and improve existing voice performances.
Add and further develop the NPC Dating System."

...expand? The only VOICE content we have is intro cutscenes and one line when you greet or leave the character! LOL

There is also little to no dialogue at all in game, and what's there is pretty bad.
Also...Add and further develop the relationship system. ADD? There IS no relationship system. There's like 1-2 lines of dialogue and they say the same things frequently and theirs only a few hearts.

The youtube and kickstarter I followed showed friendship, dates, hangouts at restaurants, MULTIPLE cutscenes with the same chars and different romances with so many cutscenes, on the roof, restaurant, petting animals. I'm CONCERNED. And then they show you with non romanceables, fully fleshed out cutscenes, beautiful cinematics of group gathering sand hangouts at the beach or different places and some pool party. The demo they took down? Had a cutscene where old women greet you in front of the seed shop...actual ccharacters. Not 1 cutscene or event with them now and forgot they exist! The old man and giant watermelon cutscene? GONE. Solara had a childhood memory and cutscene where you fix the swing. GONE. Browsing stuff in the grocery store? GONE. VIdeos that show a glider. NO GLIDER.

Advertising focus on this expansive and mentioning 'choices' in the social system making it seem complex. There IS no social system LOL. They are just as interesting as the in game tourists!. 4 characters have white hair. 3 boys and 1 girl(that also looks plain) Upsetting.

Why was sandrock characters added when your own characters aren't even shown what was promised? I'll feel better when they add at least 10 hearts, a few cutscenes per char/romance, more cinematics,

Fixing the beach festival and adding the other festival bc what was that.

Clarity on the broken systems in the festival and weird half-baked mini games (the 'race') is you alone with transparent flags you walk through

Now what sucks is I actually LOVE the mechanics of the game and the crafting. The animal ranching and feed system needs work. The decorating, building, the art? Gorgeous. The outfits we got so far? Beautiful, but limited. They have sections for pajamas and swimwear--but...no other pajamas and swimwear. It's weird.

It feels like they may have been pressured or forced to do a quick early access and full release. Idk if they pull a coral island and take a few years to bake the npc and social system they promised, bc if they do this game will be perfect and legendary--but they'd also have to FIX the profession system. They are basically fetch quests that give you unlockables and vehicles and making things easier. But the dialogue is mostly stuff like, get this, do this. Even the


SPOILERSPOILER

Explorer path was so lame and dumb, I think they should've scrapped the battle system altogether. And I was excited for the battle system. it's terrible, a nuisance, and just bad. The char in the last few things recites some random poem and you get a spirit deer for no reason with no context and you get a an achievement for being a hero. What??? O.o Like. HOMIES. if you need WRITERS i got you. I will sit here and write you stories and all the dialogue content you want. In fact. I'll do it for free. Hit me up. LOL. I got you starsand.

But no really, this game looks and feels promising yet currently it's a beautiful world that's completely lacking because it's missing the entirety of what was promised and advertised the most. The group hangouts. The friends. The cutscenes...and not just romance cutscenes. There were very clear town events. I also saw watching tv together, sitting on a bench together, cooking together. Looking like there was lots of togetherness. And other characters interacting with eachother and not just you. This game has potential...amazing potential if it does what it was promised. I wanted to say I'd reccomend it, but until that road map and clarity changes I'm seriously concerned. Then their other priorites in the last months are mod tools and multiplayer? Huh??? You're game is nowhere near complete and you want to finish this in a few months? Also this month it's 'add theme outfit/furniture' outfit? As in a single set??

I'm praying they are just hiding all the outfits/swimwear and pajamas for full release.

Also some of the hairstyles look weird esp on male chars primarily, like too high up from the scalp, but they'd look so good if they were pulled down a bit! Hope they see that too.

Them not mentioning anything about cutscenes cinematics and the festivals and dialogue SCARES me though. Also what happened with the kickstarter keys was a little crazy. It was better to not kickstart the game bc you could play on release day(which is the most important thing to me than backer rewards tbh) but kickstarter backers had to wait a few days to get their keys LOL. But everyone who didn't back the game could play right away. Oh yeah? And to make up for it, not for just the backers, but they gave EVERYONE some free outfits/dlc thing as an apology. Not the crowd that was hurt, everyone. Oh--and they were gifting giveaway keys while it happened. LOL. Now I do sympathize, bc ONE person was running around(Mia) crazy doing everything herself. I think they need more staff or workers, I wonder how small this team actually is now--but I'm a little concerned how the roadmap looks and is and lack of clarity. I'm hoping there is a translation issue and my romance or relationship system they mean adding THE ENTIRE friendship, cutscene, festival system

But the beach festival is broken, bad and weird. And you can randomly perform on stage even if you barely talked to stella. Nothing about her inviting you or that you know music or practice before hand...just...some weird bizarre mini game that's offputting. The crab mini game doesn't work, and the jet ski thing I mentioned earlier. it makes me feel that sewing/fashion designer, cooking/chef, and musician were supposed to be professions that may have been scrapped.

Why is there so much scrapped content? And if so why even let us perform on stage anyways? it seems worse. Random. And that cute beach cinematic. That's what we want, more of that. But maybe characters actually interacting with eachother and talking to you. It kind of feels like being lured by bait right now, unless I'm wrong and a translation issue and they are still adding all that.

The crafting in the game is fun, but the meat of the games is professions and npc stuff. And the profession stuff is seriously lacking. It's basically just crafting tasks. I thought there would be more to it than that! I don't know. I thought early access was for them, needing to know this to change this.

But...they already made a teeny, tiny road map. Yeah...I don't know. I'd wait to see if they implement what was promised, personally.