My Time at Sandrock [Review]
This Review was made possible using the Steam Deck and Asus Rog Ally
A lot of farming games have a similar setting and style to them, taking place in lush, populated areas. After the release of Stardew Valley and Rune Factory, people tend to have high expectations for farming sims. Whether players are looking for a familiar feature that’s been introduced in a different franchise or something new to freshen up the gameplay loop that, in my opinion, can become boring. Players looking for a farming game that’s a bit challenging definitely have a great game to look forward to with My Time at Sandrock.
Sandrock, like the name implies, takes place in a unique, desert biome. The desert matches a post-apocalyptic vibe which isn’t typical for a farming sim. It also makes for a more trying farming experience. As your entire farm runs on scarce resources, you have to step off the train and get to work.
“Difficult” isn’t what you’d expect from a farming game, so I think it’s a nice change of pace. It may be similar to its predecessor, My Time at Portia, but there are still differences aside from the setting. Since actual farming isn’t quite feasible at first, it’s mostly resource gathering and fighting. My Time at Sadrock, just like its predecessor, has an action RPG set up for combat along with classes and a leveling system. The My Time series shares a lot of small similarities to the Rune Factory series, and for people that don’t want the combat and to just have a generic farming experience, you can easily stay away from enemies. Although it’s recommended to make a weapon as soon as possible, and food from enemies is useful to keep your stamina up.
Farming sim veterans will take note that My Time at Sandrock has the farming sim staples of course. There’s a lot of townspeople to get to know and befriend as you wish, with the option of relationships and marriage. It’s worth noting that this game is inclusive with its relationship and marriage options. It isn’t so cut-and-dry though, as there are external factors that go into whether the town likes you or not. It’s illegal to cut the cactus trees of Sandrock down. While they’re a helpful source of wood, the townspeople will detest you for it. Of course, you can just cut the trees down if you don’t care about the town's friendship. My Time at Sandrock for me personally really shined with its multiplayer. I absolutely adored playing with my partner, and I see this as the best way to enjoy the game. The general exploration and combat are extraordinary with a friend and typically isn’t done often in this kind of game. The closest to this experience, I can say, is a 3DS title called Fantasy Life, which is good company for My Time at Sandrock to be in.
As for farming game semantics, there are a lot of quality of life changes that are great to see in a game like this. The storage boxes are all connected, so opening one box allows you to access the others by scrolling. You also access them from the crafting menus so you don’t need the items in your inventory. My personal favorite is the button mapping, where you can change all the controls yourself to make the game as comfortable as possible.
As with all new games, there are some problems, and I’ve encountered a few things in my playtime. A small gripe that affected my run-through of the game is when I was crafting a big item, I was interacting with the furnace by accident. It took me a bit longer than I’d like to admit to learn that if you held the select button it would get rid of the furnace semantics. It just made me wish there was an actual back button from that menu different from the select button. As for actual glitches, I only encountered a few, as I was expecting. While building a recycling machine, I had set all the materials in place, and it still didn’t let me build the machine. This was fixed by the next in-game day, and I was able to properly build it. Another issue I encountered was during conversation with a crow flying through town. When I went to exit the conversation, none of the buttons worked. I had to quit the game in order to get out of the screen.
Other than a few small irritations, I enjoyed the game. I play plenty of farming games and it’s very nice to see one with a unique setting that most games avoid. The desert may be large and dry, but it’s also never one that comes to mind when thinking of “farming,” but it truly is a beautiful and interesting map that I loved exploring and getting lost in. My Time at Sandrock is available on Consoles and PC