Fields of Mistria's cast has me head over heels in a way no farm sim has since Stardew Valley

I can turn an overgrown property into an industrial vineyard in a single year no problem. I've done it in the valleys, islands, and fields of countless farm sims. Usually it's just as easy to pluck one of its provincial hotties out of town to become my spouse (the overworked leader type, ideally), but magical girl-inspired Fields of Mistria has given me a bad case of choice paralysis. I love them all!

Fields of Mistria originally launched in early access with only the beginning of an already excellent story and two unlockable cutscenes per eligible single. Over the past two years it's added quality of life updates, story progression, and additional friendship and dating scenes. Mistria caps it all off this week with a 1.0 launch that completes the main story and, finally, adds the ability to get married. I would be psyched (I am psyched) except I've spent the past two years confessing my feelings to ten of them and if anything I'm less sure who to choose than before.

Fields of Mistria is steeped in nostalgia for '90s anime. It's got off-the-shoulder jackets. It's got shockingly high waist lines. It's got a guy who's rude right to my face and blushes when I'm nice to him anyway—a dynamic I'm too damn old for but lies dormant in the grey matter of my brain that solidified during the years Fruits Basket was in print. It's a sepia toned flashback to playing my Game Boy Advance in the third row of a minivan and drawing Edward Elric on filched printer paper.

I love how Mistria has characters for all my eras. The fifteen year old inside me will always have a soft spot for tsundere boys like March the blacksmith and arrogant beauties like Juniper the witch. In my twenties I'd have been swayed by Adeline the acting town leader who needs to take a break from organizing Mistria's earthquake recovery. Now I'm drawn to Ryis the carpenter, an unassuming 'guy next door' who moved from the city and isn't sure if he'll put down roots in the countryside.

Mistria pulls off a magical girl-worthy transformation on all those timeless anime tropes. They've got modern frills like loveable hunk Hayden being a pseudo single dad… to a prize-winning chicken. Sweet older sister Reina isn't relegated to unsung family cook; her parents support her chasing national recognition as a chef. Eiland the noble scion looks foppish at first but is way more obsessed with archaeology than his looks. They're all just a little deeper than their archetypes without ever really masking the fact that yeah, Juniper still is a classic arrogant villainess type.

The quality of Fields of Mistria's writing is what's made me so uncharacteristically indecisive. Even the best post-Stardew farm sims are cute but pretty shallow. Mistria is sneaky about how excellently it's written. Its tropey characters mean I'll never bring it up in a "good writing" conversation next to sharply smart things like Disco Elysium. Instead It's more like Avatar The Last Airbender, whose lighthearted tone masks a subtle maturity. Not the kind of maturity with swear words and dark topics, the kind that's emotionally earnest and resolves conflicts instead of omitting them.

After a decade of Stardew-chasing farm sims, Fields of Mistria is the first one to really recapture the magic for me. It addresses so many functional elements of farm sims in a way I can appreciate but what I enjoy most is how it clearly understands that the people and the community are the things to love in this genre more than a button for jumping over fences (we do love a jump button though).

Details

I've smiled over finding out that Hayden the rancher and Valen the doctor were friends as kids, or Hemlock the bartender remembering the first time he asked his wife Josephine to dance at the fall festival even as I'm spinning in circles wondering who to ask myself. I'm still surprised finding fun new little bits of conversation around town, delighted with even more to unearth in the full release.

For two years I got the classic anime release schedule experience: agonizing over these characters while waiting for the next arc of the story to arrive. Now that the 1.0 version has landed, you get to indulge in a modern binge session, seeing Mistria and its cast all grow in tandem as intended.