Hi! In this video, I rank all 26 farming simulation games that released in 2023!
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00:00 Introduction
00:19 Rules
02:10 My Time at Sandrock
Switch vs PC comparison: https://youtu.be/LGsl3s44co4
Early Access review: https://youtu.be/ziFipUmd7Mg
04:13 Coral Island
Thoughts on full release: https://youtu.be/t96gNf6vkmU
06:19 Spirit of the Island
First look gameplay: https://youtu.be/XNF2rXB5CRo
07:39 Sprout Valley
Game overview: https://youtu.be/T1K1_1WRDWI
08:44 Sugar Shack
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/T2XEXLr9TX4?feature=share
09:47 Before the Green Moon
11:25 Sun Haven
Live stream w/ @MissBubbles: https://youtube.com/live/kZ1aowhT8Mw?feature=share
13:13 Farming Simulator 23
Tips & tricks: https://youtu.be/B4EFy78qrjM
14:55 Everdream Valley
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/G_21TMnGKMM?feature=share
16:20 Ikonei Island
First look gameplay: https://youtu.be/wHKNruzOl90
17:45 Moonstone Island
Tips & tricks: https://youtu.be/aNF1cyS-pHs
19:33 Harvest Island
21:23 The Witch of Fern Island
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/-35gsT1a4Wg?feature=share
22:55 Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life
Review: https://youtu.be/sRQTYo3GMlU
Tips: https://youtu.be/0K91A8HFjpI
25:43 Roots of Pacha
Review: https://youtu.be/4jS7AaTJjH0
Tips: https://youtu.be/C2AwK2_jzrk
Farm tour: https://youtu.be/ytijjaYecw8
28:27 Paleo Pines
Demo review: https://youtu.be/6GR-3_ROyKo
30:36 Harvest Moon The Winds of Anthos
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/coi9g-ODL0Q?feature=share
33:13 Drago Noka
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/KsIxxfBzdyw?feature=share
36:14 Cornucopia
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/Kco1bbn96MQ?feature=share
38:13 One Lonely Outpost
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/D1-HTwr4Zc4?feature=share
40:22 Snacko
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/eKqQ0_Gw92U?feature=share
43:15 Song of the Prairie
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/OC2Vu8xEYZE?feature=share
45:10 Wildmender
Live stream: https://youtube.com/live/UaTGcQnnaSQ?feature=share
46:45 Rune Factory 3 Special
Rune Factory comparison: https://youtu.be/ZTww-jgXHZ8
47:54 Fae Farm
First impressions: https://youtu.be/a9IsZAKuTgA
49:38 Palia
Tips & tricks: https://youtu.be/KGdSa_ljpqs
Switch live stream: https://youtube.com/live/GpGEIXmOZoI?feature=share
51:47 Harvest Moon 64
Review: https://youtu.be/GWSxFZx_5RQ
Tips: https://youtu.be/ePaYV_vNC3E
Gameplay: https://youtu.be/Xyy_egYlCfY
53:44 Conclusion
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What was your favorite farming game of 2023? Check out the video description for more content on the games featured in this video!
Agreed with most of the ratings! I love My Time at Sandrock is so great!!!
I have also played Roots of Pacha, A Wonderful Life, Sun Haven, The Wind of Anthos and agreed with most of your reviews.
Sun haven the dark souls of farming games
And here i thought I was a huge farming sim fanatic! 🤣🤣🤣 love the list and reasoning behind it 🤝
My time at sandrock is the best cozy/farming game that I play and well deserve the S tier.
Wow, excellent video! Fun production quality, from things like being very indecisive on where to put AWL to the fly in entrance of HM64. Sorry I commented before I finished the video and saw that surprise. 🙂
As I've said in the past, you are my number one source of farming sim info and took detailed notes on this video. It was a great summary of the year! I generally only wishlist fully released games, though I have several early access titles written on my radar, some brand new as of this video, and I only wishlist games I intend to buy when a good price comes or am really on the fence. I already had Sandrock wishlisted, but I officially decided to wishlist Sprout Valley, Roots of Pacha, and Fae Farm. Give me a good sale developers and I'll buy it! Fae Farm is an on the fence example, but if it goes on a huge sale I'll probably pick it up. And after much deliberation for a couple of months, your words in this video among past ones helped me decide to make a decision and finally remove Winds of Anthos from my wishlist. Let's see if Natsume learns even more from this game, and more importantly, pulls the formula back away from the wisp-based farming and empty open world. A lot of us like organization of our crops and getting to pick the seeds we want.
You are a truly great source of valuable information. Don't feel bad about being critical of games, as I believe you do an excellent job of being unbiased and always making sure to include both pros and cons. If you didn't have such thoughtful and sometimes critical reviews, your information wouldn't be as helpful. Plus, you're considerate enough to apologize for being factful, and it shows where your heart is. You care about these developers but must speak the truth as it is. Keep up the great work!
My preferred ones are Palia, Fae Farm, Sun Haven and Dreamlight Valley. But i just play them casually.
I love the passion of the palia devs, the community is really cool so its my preferred „calm down game“.
Sun Haven was a lot fun in Early Access, but with all the dlcs it got a bad taste for me (the prices for Pixel graphics are a bit too high imo).
Fae Farm is super cute, but i only got it before a few days on sale and did not have time yet to fully sink into it, but i just love it.
In DDLV i love the customization options, and the unique features it offers like dream snaps, is very grindy though, and as well monetization can be seen negative if you don’t participate im dreamsnaps..
Everdream Valley looked so cool but was as well my biggest purchase mistake… idk felt a bit cheap made 😡
This was a really fun video to watch, thanks Josh! I haven’t played most of these games yet so it was cool to get some more info and your opinions on them. I really enjoyed my time with Fae Farm this year, and I’m really looking forward to eventually trying My Time At Sandrock.
Thank you so so much for clarifying which consoles the games run great for, it's so important! 🧡
Got steam up and my wallet open, awaiting your recommendations.
Cornucopia – The NPK system in cornucopia defines the size/quality of the harvest.
Example: planting a tomato in a plot not meeting the NPK requirement will yield small tomato, but if the requirements are met, you can get the regular size tomato or a chance large tomato which you can sell for more.
you can improve the NPK system by adding fertilizer which is very easy to make too.
Song of Prairie – In regards to what you said about it not having a unique feature, I think being able to hire people to farm, mine and fish for you is kinda unique and you can also give them equipments to improve the efficiency of their farming.
second unique feature is that you can get baby animals in the wild instead of buying. there is also hidden quest that can grant you special animals for free too, like the golden boar.
thank you for the extensive review!! i watch a lot of review videos before purchasing games, and i always search for yours first because i trust your impressions and opinions so much 😊 so happy to see your community growing—you deserve it!! ❤
Another great list, Josh!
For some reason, i thought you played travellers rest
how about Cuisineer, Josh?
Mhhhhhhh I don’t really agree with this. A Wonderful Life was one of the coolest experiences this year but only because it hit my nostalgic feelings… as a standalone game it’s terrible. And Fae Farm was my biggest disappointment in years. It’s grindy, technically seen extremely aweful.
Great video! So many good games this year. 🎉
I got back into Coral Island and had a lot of fun with it, one of my faves, but doesn’t feel finished. Sun Haven was my favorite for a long time at the start of the year. It has a lot going on but the progression is nice. I agree that it’s hard to get back into after a while, so when I play again I’m starting over. Fae Farm was a nice surprise, I really enjoyed it a lot and have 50-60 hours in it.
Other than those I got back into stardew (again – with mods this time) and looking forward to the update! Loved Palia too but I had to play on the PC and I much prefer steam deck.
Also really enjoyed Roots of Pacha, Cuisineer, Moonstone Island, Travelers rest, Dave the Diver, Winkeltje and Cozy grove ❤ Actually had fun decorating and exploring in Spirit of the Island as well.
Disoppointed in Everdream Valley, Blue Oak Bridge, and Song of the Prairie. They didn’t keep my attention unfortunately. I played the demo of Paleo Pines and decided it was not for me.
For some reason I have not really got into Sandrock yet.
My #1 game this year is still Dreamlight Valley. It’s the game that always feel fresh and fun to go back to. Nothing can beat it at this point. So much fun with all the updates, dream snaps and decorating. I’m loving how the game is developing, feels like there’s still much to come! And the DLC is amazing. I don’t think any other game has kept me playing this much for over a year. I’m so happy with that game. I wish you played it too but totally understand it’s very time consuming. But I know there is a huge community out there for DDV you could reach if you ever do play it. 🤗
Looking forward to next year with all the cozy games and your gaming garden content! 🥳
thank you for your honest opinion , we really appreciate the time you put into all your content but don't feel bad about your opinion on certain games , it's nice to see a content creator being honest and open and I feel you give games hours of gameplay before even giving reviews so thank you 😊 have a wonderful day . I would have to say Coral Island is my favorite for 2023 but as you said the bugs are bad and the missing content , I quit playing for now until its fixed .
List seems pretty inline with what I had in mind, though for Paleo Pines I would have put it in the C because of the clunky world navigation, as well as some clunky dino riding controls. And especially after Spirit of the Island went into C and I think both games are on the same level.
Hey Josh! What about Immortal life? I always thought you would love the game but you didn't cover it that much, how come?
I finally bought sprout valley bundled with garden buddies for $4.
My hope for 2024 farming games is more innovation in the actual farming mechanics. As someone in the sustainable ag field, the way these games farm all feels extremely bare bones to me; they usually ignore things like crop rotations, genetics, crop improvement, regionality, ecosystem services, native crops vs non native, pest pressure, weather events, and usually they don't integrate animals well either (fertilizer for example). This just scratches the surface, there's sooooo much you can do here.
I think adding all of these in would be too hardcore for a true cozy game (imagine losing all your Y1 income because you planted a monoculture of corn and there was a drought lol). But I still think there's a wealth of mechanics to pull from IRL that would add much more depth to farming games.
Putting SoS:AWL in S tier and HM:WoA in B tier is… oof.
Well, it's your list, I guess 😀
You are hard on Everdream Valley, I find it really good. Since the updates this has improved a lot. Tier A for me.
100% agree with your tier-list, and I know it was hard ranking Palia, but cost is also an important factor, and it's hard to beat a free game with cross-platform!
Was on the fence, but I just started Fae Farm and have been enjoying it more than expected. It feels really polished
so far I'm playing Sandrock now. I just intantly fall in love with it since having good experience with Portia.
My favorites this year are My Time at Sandrock, Stardew Valley (well it was on my backlog for quite a while) and Dinkum.
Quite a good year for the genre.
I agree mostly with your ranking with minor changes, for me Moonstone Island and Sun Haven are S, I still need to get to roots of pacha to see what I think of it!
Thanks for the tier, Josh!
I love tier lists, fun to hear your thoughts.