Among the genres I tend to get lost in on a regular basis, farming games and cozy titles tend to take the cake. Between any big-name release, I will usually fall back into Story of Seasons, Coral Island, Rune Factory, or now, Fields of Mistria. I have been playing this genre since I was a child, so I’m watching the influx of developers interested in trying to replicate the success of Stardew Valley or have their relaxation title where there are no winners or losers, just happy little plants growing in your happy little garden. I was really hoping Sugardew Island was going to be my next go-to title, and there are parts of it I might feel like coming back to in the future. After all, these games are my happy place.
In the last year, however, the untouchable Stardew Valley, which still holds a very high place among the genre, feels like it has finally not be the ‘must have’, which a lot of recent games offering experiences on par, or unique enough to drag you away. Therein lies the problem. While Sugerdew Island has an interesting loop, it doesn’t have a loop that begs to be played over other games in the genre, and I wish I could say otherwise. By hour 10, you will be pretty familiar with what is expected of you, and by hour 20, it won’t feel evolved enough to engross you, either by adding new elements or allowing you the freedom of a successful farm to do whatever you want, simply. There are also serious limitations on the genre that really didn’t resonate with me.
Going Back To The Island
Sugardew Island has a story, but like most games in the genre, it’s not really an all-encompassing one. The player takes the role of a character who travels to the titular island that has long since become abandoned. They end up taking over a farm, with the goal of the game being to rebuild the island back to some form of former glory. One of the things I appreciated was just how quickly the game goes through this, allowing you to jump straight into the high-octain-farming action. You only need to weade through a few scenes here that go by very quickly, and then you get to start playing. Once you start playing, that’s it, there isn’t this start and stop nature like Harvest Moon occasionally feels the need to do, treating you like you never planted a digital crop before.
In order to accomplish the goal of restoring the island, the player will take on tasks from 6 different islands that are connected to the core one that, upon completion, will unlock new upgrades you can buy, new seeds to plant, and Animals to purchase for your farm. This sounds like the start of a very fun farming journey, but as these tasks across all islands are identical, requiring the same action for every level, they rely entirely on a loop that gets old too fast to truly be enjoyable. Despite there being several islands with several tasks, all of them lead to one singular element, with every little offshoot.
These islands that you are repairing also offer very little to diversify the game later on. In one way, you do get the fun of Coral Island’s ocean missions, slowly making vines that have overtaken the islands become less and less prevalent. What you really unlock, though, are small islands you can travel to with whatever animal they are named after on them. Rabbit Island has a bunch of rabbits, for instance. Despite magic being featured and a part of the game, these animals aren’t magic… They are just animals… That don’t talk. They can offer you the occasional seed packet, but across all islands, this was what I had gained, making it feel very limited.
As part of this narrative as well, the islands being empty and all, there are very limited people to interact with. One character, the only other human you meet, sells you seeds and animals, while a forest spirit in the form of a fennec-like animal is the other you interact with. Outside of that, there is no town or other character you can have interactions with outside of the core mechanic of the shop I will get to shortly. Again, the core loop feels so central, with nothing to break up the monotony of it, that it feels more draining than fun. There is some expanse to be had later on, but to achieve it, you need to wade through a lot of this first which makes reaching that point less of a certainty.
Farming and Selling
Sugardew Island gives you a pretty big farm with decorations that are easy to unlock, so even when you start, you have the ability to personalize it to your liking. It has two areas attached as well, though I found it hard to even begin grooming the second area till much later in my playtime. This doesn’t necessarily reflect what another person’s experience might be, but it also felt unneeded early, given what the player can juggle. I guess I’m saying this area felt perfect to be rewarded to the player later rather than from the get-go.
Core mechanics that you expect to make an appearance to so her such as stamina to limit your daily activities. It is a little cumbersome as early on it was hard to even manage a limited number of plots on my farm and try cleaning away unwanted trees or stones, all of which work exactly how one would expect if they have played a cozy sim farming game before. What isn’t familiar is the time mechanic as Sugardew Island forgoes specific days, simply calling each day day 1, day 2, and so on, as well as lacking a clock. Days have two periods, which are daytime and night, with a transition between the two only occurring should the player open their shop that day, with zero elements changing between the two as you can still do the same things such as buy seeds at night.
Every element of the game feeds into the shop, which is how you accomplish everything. Island spirits and sprites want to buy your crops and will come to your shop, though they cannot be seen anywhere else. You grow the crops, put them in your shop, and hopefully sell them for profit. In doing so, you also get an additional currency that goes into the objectives you are completing, making any task in the game solely reliant on the shop. This might not have bothered me as much if the shop was also a fun part of the experience, but it became tedium pretty quickly.
For starters, every item gives you the same amount of experience for missions, 1 per item, making later tasks feel grindy as you need to go through 6-7 cycles to complete this. This also annoys me as crops that require actually grown, despite giving you more money than, say, weeds, don’t have the value of just picking all the weeds on your farm and selling them for the high yield of points toward unlocking stuff. Additionally, while many people might just come in and buy things, others might haggle or need convincing. These results can be wildly inconsistent, but even worse, should they decide not to buy the item, these do not get placed back into the store inventory but a box you can empty and resell again tomorrow. Yes, I have had a day where nobody bought my highest profit item, placing about 20 units in that box, which just felt like a slap in the face.
Once you sell the items, you can use the money to buy more seeds or upgrades to your tools or buildings, with the major progression really being volume rather than feeling like you have made any significant progress and with much more limitation on your items, base tools really being everything you have, you lose out of the biggest genre push that Stardew Valley achieved, allowing players to automate their fans to realize just how much the farming loop can expand away from that. Here, though, there really isn’t much to see off of your farm, so I get it, though I can’t beg specifically which the bigger sin. I just know they both feel that way.
Verdict
For those looking for a stress-free, cozy sim to just kick back and relax too, this could be one you might try. It isn’t horrible and does have on offer a traditional loop of growing and selling crops, cleaning up your farm, and upgrading your items. The biggest issue it runs into when discussing that, though, is that there are just so many other games on offer these days that offer all of this and an insane amount more. Sugerdew Island is cheaper than its competition, but in most cases just under 10 dollars, which I feel is less of a price hurdle to be introduced to a cast of characters, a farm with more elements to it, and loops that allow for walking off the main road.
There is an audience I think can get fun out of their time on Sugardew, but sadly, I wasn’t one of them. For those unfamiliar with the offerings in the cozy genre, this could serve as a great entry point to the other experiences, but if you have played the rest, there just isn’t enough here to recommend it over them.
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Reviewed For PlayStation 5, Also Available PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC
A review code was provided by Rokaplay for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Rokaplay
Publisher: Rokaplay, Silver Lining
Release Date: March 7th, 2025
Take over the farm on Sugardew Dew Island and help return the island to what it once was.
PROS:
+Cheaper Price Point
+Relaxing
+Some interesting ideas
CONS:
-Repetitive
-Too much reliance on core loop
-No day/night or Date system
-Not as fun as other games in the genre
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Sugardew Island
