Tales of Seikyu Review: A Cozy Farming Sim with a Transformative Twist

Tales of Seikyu beckons you in with its many popular gameplay elements, its art style, and its interesting story, inviting you into the unusual land of Seikyu and hopefully keeping you around long enough to help the town thrive, fall in love, and discover the mysteries of the island. Now, the game is still in early access, so not every feature is currently available, but does it have enough of a unique identity to keep you playing, or is it just going to fade in amongst the plethora of other games like it?

If you sunk hours of time into Breath of the Wild but wished it had more farming and the ability to date conventionally attractive anthropomorphic townsfolk, then maybe Tales of Seikyu is your perfect game. With gameplay elements lifted straight from the farming sim handbook and assets that are more than just reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda’s more recent entries, it may seem this game has nothing original to offer, but its story is weird and wacky enough that it might just push itself out of the box it has put itself in.

Like I have already mentioned, the game hits every mark you’d expect from a farming sim, the seasons each give you the opportunity to grow specific produce, you must water your plants daily, you can sell produce while you sleep in the oh-so-common magical box, and you can craft, mine, cook, and fish to your heart's content. But there is something unique about the game’s approach to at least some of the elements of the farming cycle, in the form of your character's ability to transform into other animals.

Now would probably be a good time to explain why our character can morph into other beings, so let me attempt to explain the game's plot. You and your sibling Kon (who is the fennec fox (citation needed) that follows you around) are the last remaining members of the mysterious Fox Clan after all of its other members have disappeared some time ago, and the pair of you have traveled to your family’s ancestral land in search of your parents and the rest of your family. The Fox Clan is different from the other people you meet on the island, some of whom are animal people, some of whom are just regular cats and dogs, some of whom have the ability to transform from one type of animal into just regular people, and some who might just fully be people with no transformation ability at all. Your character, and other Foxes, can transform into multiple animals (that you’ll gradually unlock as the game progresses), starting with a boar that can help you farm and eventually into a fox like your sister (who, by the way, can’t transform at all…yet).

So that is why you have found yourself on this island, and why everyone is so keen for you to be there, with the hopes that your arrival will revamp the island and potentially bring other foxes to its shore. But, other than farming, what else is there to do to help the community and yourself?

Exploration primarily comes in the form of the fox temple, a dungeon that you must progress through to uncover mysteries, mine resources, and unlock specific quest items. The temple is made up of 40 rooms, most of which unlock once you have defeated all of the enemies in the room, and can be returned to every day with fresh resources, enemies, and new places to explore.

The combat, mining, and wood chopping can all be done with the same weapon, so there is no need to source multiple tools for your journeys. Speaking of combat, there are three main ways to fight the enemies littered about the map, and all of these are done with a simple click of a mouse or press of a button on your controller. Combat is incredibly simple and easy to win once you have found yourself a decent weapon.

Relationships are built with the other townsfolk by completing ‘Request Board’ missions, offering gifts, and chatting with them. However, I often found that beyond reading their one line of opening dialogue, most NPCs don’t actually have anything to say unless you offer them a gift, which is often a stab in the dark regarding whether they will like it or not. The more you ‘chat’ with them, the better the relationship will be, and subsequently, the NPC will offer you missions, gifts, or even ask you on a date if you’ve happened to flirt with one of the many dateable NPCs in Seikyu.

Progression can feel a little difficult, with quests that imply you should transform into other creatures that you do not yet have popping up very early on and no real explanation about how you would go about getting those other abilities offered from either the quests or your ancestors who pop up to speak to you when you unlock a shrine. The map is also fogged out in places, walling off where you can travel to, which I assume may be an early access implementation but left me wondering if I had missed something. Weapons are also not clearly accessible in any of the shops and can only be created once you have acquired the crafting resources, which again can lock you out of quests that you received early on in your time with the game.

The sound design is lovely, with music backing you on your adventures around the map. The game gives each area a nicely distinct feel, and with the incorporation of traditional Japanese instruments and vocal stings, there is a lovely unique feel to the world you are playing in. However, I will say the quiet ghostly humming of both your character and other NPCs that occurs did give me the willies more than once.

The game as a whole looks great, if (and I promise this is the last time I will mention it) not moderately familiar, with characters who look great in both their 3D models and the 2D art designed to imply how they are feeling when they ‘speak’. It is worth mentioning there is no voice acting, though that is not necessarily a bad thing. The world can feel a little flat; there isn’t much foliage or diverse landscapes (at least not yet), but it doesn’t draw that much away from the world itself.

Overall, the game performs well, with only the occasional slowdown when coming in or out of loading screens, and I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs or crashes, though once or twice NPCs did slide along the floor in T-poses and enemies spawned inside walls in the temple, leaving me unable to continue down certain routes.

The settings only cover the basics in gameplay, visual, and audio, with little to no accessibility options afforded to the player. Plus, the game is currently only available in English, German, Chinese, and Japanese. Both mouse and keyboard and controller work relatively well for whichever method of play you prefer, though with a controller you may find yourself doing two actions at once, as it seems there are too many required buttons for the standard Xbox controller.

Tales of Seikyu will be perfect for gamers who want a simple farming sim, with a bit of a twist, to sink their teeth into, though I struggle to see it making an impact in an already oversaturated genre. The gameplay elements work well, the story is somewhat interesting, if a bit strange, and the NPCs are (in general) distinct enough from one another that you are sure to find someone you fancy laying a smooch on later down the line, but I can’t help but feel the game lacks originality, partially due to just how similar a lot of its assets look to other games… I mean, these little enemy guys are basically goblins from Breath of the Wild, and why are they there?? No one seems to mention them at all, not even a ‘be careful of the plains, there’s a bunch of little dudes with clubs running around,’ and even the main characters don’t think they’re the bad guys in the story, so what is their whole deal??

And hey, maybe I am being too hard on the familiar assets. It’s not the first time we’ve seen games heavily inspired by what other developers did well, and hopefully by the time the game leaves early access in around a year, there will be more development to the story, combat, map, and general information for the players. But for now, Tales of Seikyu earns itself a Table Lamp of approval.

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