Video Game / Fields of Mistria

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Fields of Mistria is a Farm Life Sim game created by NPC Studio and released as an Early Access title in August 5, 2024 through Steam, with a full release set for 2026. It follows in the steps of other games in the genre like Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley, with many options for developing and customizing the player's own farm. It also includes combat mechanics, like Rune Factory, and a perk system to further increase the players' skills.

In the fantastic kingdom of Aldaria, there's a town between a forest and the ocean called Mistria. It was originally a town with a good reputation, until an earthquake devastated much of the area and its surroundings. Although no lives were lost, the town rank suffered greatly and the local Baron and Baroness had been called to the capital. The daughter of the Baron and her brother were put in charge of the restoration efforts, including rebuilding the bridges and roads, stocking the necessary supplies...and then the daughter came up with a plan: she would give an old, abandoned farm to the south of the town to any adventurer in the capital who wanted it, in exchange for help solving Mistria's problems. Now, an adventurer has accepted the request and decided to help...

Fields Of Mistria provides examples of:

• Alliteration & Adventurers: Sessions of Dragons & Drama are occasionally played on Fridays in the Sleeping Dragon Inn.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Your farm animals come in a wide variety of colors. While animals under Tier 1 tend to have traditional colors, more exotic colors can be unlocked by breeding your animals. The highest tier has the animals in vibrant seasonal colors depending on what season it was when they're born: green in spring, yellow or orange in summer, black (and white accents, depending on the animal) in fall, and red or sky blue in winter.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Besides Tesserae and furniture, the typical rewards for upgrading Mistria's Town Rank are new outfits and accessories.
• Animesque: The characters' art visibly draws its style from late-nineties anime, which led a lot of players and reviewers to describe the game as "Stardew Valley meets Sailor Moon."
• Anti-Frustration Features: Event chains in other Farm Life Sims have a reputation for being extraordinarily hard to trigger due to the games never stating their requirements. In Fields of Mistria, once you've raised a character's Relationship Values enough for a Heart Event, they will outright mail you a letter telling you exactly how to trigger it.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: Players can feed their livestock crops and cooked dishes (with Currency of Care III), which zigzags this trope depending on the item fed. For example, rabbits could be given potatoes (toxic to rabbits in real life) with no ill effects in the game.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: While some characters wear more modern-looking outfits (Like Reina or Dell), others dress like they're on their way to a Renaissance fair (most notably Adeline and Eiland).
• Broken Bridge: The earthquake that hit Mistria prior to the events of the game means that several areas aren't accessible at first due to broken bridges and crumbled staircases, which require increased town rank and municipal projects to fix.
• Collection Sidequest: As in Animal Crossing, there's a Museum with many exhibits, ranging from Artifacts and Crops to even Bugs. The player can donate one of each missing object to the Museum and earn Renown. Completing an exhibition set rewards the player with money (called Tesserae here), and other prizes such as furniture and recipes for crafting those.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Mistria offers the ability to jump over small obstacles and fences, unlike most of its other contemporary games; one used to the on-foot methods natural to Stardew Valley may find themselves chipping away at their stamina to clear a path when it would have been as easy if not easier to simply hop over the debris.
  • In a similar vein, Mistria forgoes the usual store scheduling aspect of other farming sims, with all stores being open at all times. It may take some time to get used to being able to simply walk into the general store at 6 AM, in contrast to most games in the genre usually only allowing the player in at certain times.
• Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Not only can you forge your own tools with the relevant ingots, but if you take relevant skill perks from Caldarus, you can imbue them with specific buffs, such as extra attack power for your sword.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Once you donate something to museum, there’s a chance an NPC might comment on seeing it there and their thoughts on it.
  • If you invite Caldarus to a date before clearing the Mines, he is unable to leave the Deep Woods due to his condition, so he and the player will substitute the original location with an area in the Deep Woods.
  • While you can give gifts to villagers, certain items are classified so that they cannot be given to certain villagers. Chocolate items, which are dangerous for animals, cannot be given to Dozy or Henrietta, while they and the child villagers (Dell, Maple, and Luc) cannot receive alcohol, caffeine, or bombs.
• Double Unlock: As your skills level up, you gain access to new tiers of upgrades at multiples of 15 (so level 15, 30, 45, etc.). To actually purchase the upgrades, you need Essence, which you collect by performing basic actions (chopping down trees, planting crops, breaking rocks, etc.).
• Draconic Humanoid: Upon breaking the Fire Seal, Caldarus shifts from his dragon form to a Little Bit Beastly form due to the power drain it took to destroy the Sealing Scroll. Another dragon, Seridia, emerges in a humanlike form after breaking all the seals.
• Experience Points: In two different forms!
  • Your character's skills level up as you use them: planting and harvesting crops will increase Farming, cooking dishes will increase Cooking, breaking rocks in the mine will increase Mining, etc.
  • The town has its own experience points, called "Renown," which determines the Town Rank. Every time the Town Rank increases, a reward is available to the player to collect in a box next to the Request Board. Renown comes from donations to the Museum, completing quests from the Request Board, selling products through the Shipping Bin, and completing certain events.
• Everyone Is Bi: Like most modern games with romance aspects, the dateable characters can be romanced regardless of the player’s gender. Outside of those characters, Elsie also has a chance to casually reveal that she’s also attracted to women when she refers to an ex-lover as a “she.”
• Fantasy Counterpart Appliance: A crystal ball forecasting the next day's weather takes the place of the television used in most other games in the Farm Life Sim genre. Crystal balls in general appear to be the stand-in for televisions here, as Juniper frequently uses one to watch shows and footage of dogs.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Discussed. According to Caldarus, making puns was considered a criminal offense during his time.
• Foil: Valen and Juniper. They both offer services that heal folks, the former with medicine and the latter with a bathhouse, and their heart events involve the player helping to further their respective crafts. However, in all other respects, they are mirror opposites. Valen is a scientist and Juniper is a sorceress. Valen is relaxed and civil, Juniper has a mean and emotional streak. Valen dresses sharply and professionally, usually with some kind of coat, Juniper wears very revealing outfits. Other than having a Creepy Basement, Valen is focused on keeping people healthy with a professional approach to science, Juniper is prone to experimenting on others with her magic (though both their events involve unexpected results on the player).
• He Knows About Timed Hits: If the player talks to Caldarus's statue, he may tell them about an old Mistrian saying: "Remember that there is a jump button." Caldarus himself wonders what exactly it means.
• Horse of a Different Color: Invoked. Once you unlock the Mistmare, one unlockable perk lets you switch out the default purple horse to any large animal that has a close enough bond with you. So, you can go into town on the back of your prized cow, sheep, or alpaca if you choose.
• Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat: You can find cooked meals in treasure chests, both the ones you encounter in the mines and those you dig or fish up. The food is perfectly edible and no different from home-cooked.
• Interface Spoiler: Upon restoring Caldarus's statue and speaking to it, you find that Caldarus has the same heart gauge style as the marriage candidates in town, which notes that he's also a romance option later on.
• Interspecies Romance: The secret romance candidates, Caldarus and Seridia, are both dragons.
• Kill Enemies to Open: The Ruins portion of the mines add monster floors, which require you to defeat all foes before you can pick up treasure and advance. There are two flavors: one with various enemies in a room with water splitting the room into six sections, and one with two small enemies and a large Gryphon Statue surrounded by stones. A Background Music Override goes in effect for as long as there's at least one monster still standing.
• Low Fantasy: Magic exists in the world of Mistria, but does not appear to be very commonplace or "flashy". The player's unique connection with Caldarus eventually gives them access to spells and magical abilities, albeit ones mostly suited to assist with farming.
• Matter Replicator: Once unlocked, the Stone Refinery allows the player to convert raw stone into other materials, even organic things like sod and wood. How? Magic exists, don't worry about it.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Juniper has a portrait expression and unique soundbite in which she gives this type of laugh, usually after a quip at the player character's expense.
• Non-Combat EXP: After the start of the game, an early event gives the player the ability of gathering essence from various activities, not only from combat. Every succesful action (i.e.: Foraging, Fishing, Fighting) gives the player essence that can be used to learn a skill perk, such as: having the chance of a recently planted seed automatically being watered without using a watering can, or reducing the material costs for crafting and/or blacksmithing, and so on. However, the higher level perks have a skill level requirement that must be reached by the player first to learn it.
• Noodle Incident: During Saturday Market, Nora explains that Dell, her younger daughter, is not allowed to have coffee, with "The Incident" in shaky text as the reason. She does not explain it any further. Maple will also warn the player regarding "The Incident", stating she witnessed what happened last time Dell got coffee, and refuses to explain what exactly happened.
• Parrying Bullets: Clod projectiles can be reflected back with swords. It's the most efficient way to defeat them, as direct attacks only inflict Scratch Damage. One variant of Rockclod can use itself as the bullet.
• Power-Up Mount: Starting after upgrading Hayden's barn and coop and completing the Fetch Quest that follows, your farmer can unlock a Mistmare, a mystical horse that you can summon to take you anywhere quickly.
• Queer Colors: The "Striped Bow" and "Striped Bucket Hat" accessories default to a rainbow pattern, and can be recolored to most common Pride flag schemes.
• Rainbow Speak: If an item is mentioned, it will usually be in yellow text. If the text is pink, it's a desired gift for the speaker.
• Relationship Values: As in many games of the genre, the player can increase their relationship with the NPCs by talking with them and giving gifts once per day, unlocking new cutscenes and interactions.
• Resource Reimbursement: Several skills have an upgrade where crafting an item will occasionally return one of the resources used (e.g. when cooking, you'll get one of the ingredients back), despite how absurd it may be. It's possible to make a single ingredient recipe boiled egg and the skill refund the egg, only for the skill to trigger multiple times in the row, creating a bunch of boiled eggs from a single egg.
• Schizo Tech: It's a bit hard to pin down the exact technology level of Mistria and the surrounding world; while it seems like some things run on electricity and many modern appliances exist in some form, things like automobiles or even phones are never mentioned, and some items imply magical "replacements" for modern tech (for example, rather than check the news channel for tomorrow's weather, you check a crystal ball).
• Ship Tease: The player is this to the bachelors and bachelorette, but they can choose to make it Platonic or romantic.
  • Adeline is shown to have this with the player the more you get to know her. In her 6 Heart event, during their patrol of looking around town, when Adeline says the player can take a rest, she takes a moment and shyly admits she would like to be with the player for a bit longer, in which you do still accompany her. Taken further in the 8 Heart event with her that she admits she felt something for them and thought they were so cute that she dropped the vase of welcome flowers when they came to their house.
  • You can hear the conversation between Celine, Adeline, and Reina when the former says how the player always stops by her cottage and the latter says how the player always helps with the postings on the quest board. Eventually, Adeline notices you:
    Adeline: OH HELLO [Player]. WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT. THE QUEST BOARD.
• Shout-Out:
  • When you catch a bug or fish, you’ll flash a V-Sign, just like Ash would do upon catching a Pokémon.
  • When you agree to Dell’s offer to go to her house during Celine’s 6th heart event, she’ll gleefully run around the room declaring that “It’s cobblin’ time!”
  • The mermaid’s comb artifact is noted to look suspiciously like a fork.
  • One of the books Elsie’s book club reads is called The Rise and Fall of House Amore.
  • After Wheedle makes a proper introduction, he would request 7 Emeralds. Cue a nod to Sonic the Hedgehog once you hand them over, as he dubs them as Chaos Emeralds.
  • Random dialogue with Adeline that will only trigger before Elsie’s birthday has her remark that she should start searching for a gift, before stating “but what do you get for the woman who has everything?”
  • The "Farmer's" set of clothing in its default colors is the outfit that Pete wears in Harvest Moon 1, as a tribute to the game that started the Farm Life Sim genre in the first place.
• Shy Finger-Twiddling: Celine has an embarrassed portrait expression in which she twiddles her fingers.
• Signature Laugh:
  • Juniper’s Noblewoman's Laugh is probably the most notable of the NPCs, and it even gets a unique sprite and sound.
  • Terithia has very loud and jolly “KYA HA HA!”
• Standard Japanese Fantasy Setting: A downplayed Low Fantasy example, but some of the hallmarks are there and it does seem to be invoking the early to mid 90s version of this.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Dell and Maple are practically attached at the hip and often play pretend with one another, with Dell getting into more physical mischief, and Maple focusing more on being a queen who totally doesn't command her "knight" to get into said physical mischief.
• Trap Is the Only Option:
  • Played straight when breaking the Fire Seal, as it requires a Sealing Scroll, which poses a danger when unfurled. Balor does warn the farmer not to open it, but the scroll opens up by itself when activated by the mechanism breaking the seal, forcing Caldarus to rush to the farmer's aid.
  • Defied by the Priestess when breaking the Ruins seal. When the farmer tells her about the trap at the Fire Seal, she suspects the Ruins Seal is also trapped, and by joining Dragon's Breaths with the farmer, opens up a Void Between the Worlds to make a workaround. Sure enough, the tablet with the offering instructions along with the pedestals for the offerings had a trap, but the Priestess's strategy to create a Void clone of the player that would No-Sell it while performing the acts paid off.
• Two Words: Added Emphasis: Holt and Hemlock express their excitement for beach cookouts during summer:
  Holt: Two words: Beach. COOKOUT.
  Hemlock: The two most important words of the season.