When I started playing this, I was really surprised that the vibe was closer to RF4 than RFF. I even checked to see if it was a remake thing, but no. I think this is mostly a plus gameplay wise, even if it doesn't have some of the quality of life changes from the later games (I don't mind much except for not being able to take stuff out of the shipping box).

Writing wise, though... it also does the thing where characters have one trait that all of their dialogue revolves around. It's annoying! It's especially bad with Rusk, who literally mentions a vegetable he doesn't like every time I talk to him. Granted, you do get to see actual personality from them when you do their requests, which are pretty nice (and I've felt like it's easier to raise affection without much effort in this game), but still.

The story is almost nonexistent too, but that's not all negative. It's nice to have a shorter farming game for once! And the way they integrated marriage into the main story was nice, even if the pacing was kind of awkward for me specifically because I chose to marry Kuruna. I think it's a very solid game despite all the flaws, and this remake really does it justice.

There have been an increasing number of small games taking inspiration from PS1 horror games for years now, but Crow Country is absolutely worth checking out for combining some creepy creatures and sequences inside an abandoned theme park some silly humor.

You can choose to go through the game without enemies apparently, but I liked having to zig zag around monsters and choose when to start blasting

It’s also about 4 hours and includes a hint system that gives just enough context to get you through the classic problem of “where do I go next”.