Gun mecanics are simply WONDERFUL. The bullet time is straight on point, and the level design is precise enough to create an action game in which you feel endangered. Guns are varied, so are the situations and objectives. One mission is an escort mission, another one is a sniper assist mission, another one features a lot of plateforming, another one is a giant ghost train featuring small puzzles, another one is a race to find back your weaponery...

Characters are iconic and quite well written. It is as goofy as parodistic as... I don't know, serious? Sam Lake does seem to be serious about it... Boss fights are great, mise-en-scène is inspired. The pace is 20/20, the game length is ideal. Art direction is strong even nowadays.

I see no reason for you not to play except the PC version is, apparently, bad. Like really bad.

This game is super addictive. That's a fact. I surprised myself not wiling to let the controller down when it was 2am because I had to water my vegetables. I HAD TO.

IMHO, this addictive force is due to 5 factors:
- Routine: You know what you have to do tomorrow when you go to sleep, and you know the convenience store will be oppenned at 9am. Pace-wise, it's wonderful.
- Very good small feedbacks: The fishing sounds, the sound when you gather things, the colors of sprites... All of this is well done and polished. It makes playing the game without purpose a fun time on its own.
- Indicated hard-reward: You want a henhouse? Please bring 6000 coins, 400 wood and 200 stone. If you do so, you'll have your henhouse. Beleive me this encourage a lot mining stone and chopping wood.
- Fishing: It features a fun mini-game and can be done whenever your near water. Considering the level design places very smartly rivers, seas and lakes, you find yourself able to fish whenver you want to fill a gap in your schedule. This again, is brilliant pace-wise.
- There is no failure

Unfortunately, in my eyes, all this seem... Way too big. Pointless. I found myself walking, walking and walking again to do what? Gather shells? I Gather a TON of ressources to... To do what? Gaining access to cows, whom I'll milk, to do whoever knows what with this milk... What is the point of planting a tree that need 28 days to grow (which is an entire season) and gives fruits in spring while you already are in spring? The point is to benefit from it next year? Seriously? That means you'll harvest fruits in at least 32 real-world-hours!!!

I question myself: is it fun? I mean, it looks like work. I don't want to water my plants. I want to harvest them. I don't want to go in the mine. I want to have copper ingot to upgrade my tools. Eventually: I simply don't want to go to the convenience store because it takes me 1h in game to reach it, which is way too much.

Too much to do, so little time to do so. I wonder how a game advocating a peaceful return to what's important, to a quiet pace of life can be so stressful. Timetables are the worst idea this game might have had. It feels like this game... Doesn't care about the player. I mean yes, it is 17h10 and you end your day at 17h00. I get it. But guess what? Your a robot constituted of 0 and 1, I'm a player. Let me in, I have garbage to sell. Many many times I get to places to do a precise thing, I did other thing there, left, and totally forget about the thing I was supposed to do until I reached my house and it's 18h, which means in my eyes I wasted my day. This is one of the most frustrating feeling I ever had in a videogame.

I must point out the combat system isn't good. That's cool, because we're not here for a combat system. But here's what impressed me: you spend winter in the mine, using the combat system. This is... Audacious at least. Unseen and mad considering this is a farming game. Kudos to the devs for believing this much in the game's combats.

I must point out I played it in split-screen. This imply two major flaws:
- We can't see nothing
- The time continues to fly during cutscenes, dialogs, inventory managment, which believe me is a HUGE waste. As a consequence, I skipped every piece of narration because I wanted to not waste my day.

I get why it is the favorite game of a lot of people, but this isn't for me.