Genuinely a surprising experience. My first impression of the game came from its rather "mobile" appearance, bearing a resemblance to cheap mobile games that lack a touch of passion. What the game does on the contrary is amplify the best parts of farming sims, with likable characters, a story that actually tries, and providing the players with an obvious sense of progression that is satisfying.
While this is a farming game, it operates more as a crafting game, with crops being used to help produce goods that are useful for other recipes. Another thing that separates it from its contemporaries is the use of magic in the game, which provides useful buffs and helps to act as landmarks to further plot progression.
The story has actual stakes as well, with the town becoming fearful of each other leading to conflicts that reveal deeper complexities, leaving the game to not be as mindlessly cheerful as other sim games can be. An issue is the lack of a cohesive "villain revealed" moment. While the player knows their is someone evil, the identity is revealed near the end of the first year with little fanfare and is resolved very shortly thereafter.
While the game has a fantastic sense of progression for the first year, the second year adds little to explore. By that point, relationships are likely maxed out, collectibles collected, and major plot points completed. There is not much to keep you playing afterward, but it never becomes stale, rather uneventful.
In conclusion, even with its faults, I found myself utterly addicted to the game playing it at any given opportunity and growing to love this fictional world and characters. The faults are not so grand to get in the way of what turned out to be a surprisingly excellent experience.