Tales of Autumn

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG / Management Sim

Players: 1

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Review:

Tales of Autumn, released on PC in 2023 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2025, is a Top-Down Action-RPG and Management Simulation, but I could have saved a lot of words if I simply described it as a “Farming RPG”, a genre that has come to be closely associated with Stardew Valley, though that game is certainly not the first game in this subgenre, which crystallized with the Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons franchises.

However, while Tales of Autumn still features farming, its focus is shifted away from that to put more emphasis on attracting and domesticating various creatures in your ranch, from familiar animals to fantastical ones. Plus, there’s a greater emphasis on story here than you often get in the genre.

That said, the story in Tales of Autumn seems… odd. The other townsfolk seem to talk in a conspiratorial way like they’re members of some sort of dark secret society or something, and while they’re generally friendly, there are some ominous undertones to the way they talk to you, often saying that things will go great for you if you get along with the other townsfolk, while implying that things may not go so well for you if you don’t… like your predecessor who left under unclear circumstances.

Now, if this game was going for a creepy, unsettling vibe, that above paragraph would be absolutely amazing. The problem is, I don’t think that is what the game is going for, which makes the somewhat unsettling dialogue feel tonally dissonant with the rest of the game. It’s like if you were watching an episode of Sesame Street and Elmo happily talked about how everyone gets along… and then lowered his voice to say in a warning tone “because if they don’t… bad things happen…” and then the episode went back to singing and teaching letters and numbers, leaving you wondering just what the heck that was about.

Speaking of the game’s vibe, Tales of Autumn uses 2D pixel art visuals that are decent but not impressive, joined by a relaxed soundtrack that works well for the game, and sound design that’s pretty decent. I don’t think this game is especially impressive, but it works well enough for the gameplay.

When it comes to that gameplay, Tales of Autumn hits all the familiar spots of this sort of game – running errands for townsfolk, dropping things in a bin to sell them, keeping track of your stamina, learning the ins and outs of the town’s schedule, building up your relationships with the townsfolk. Apart from the shift in focus, this is all familiar territory.

However, I’m sorry to say that something went wrong in the port to Nintendo Switch. While usually this is due to optimization issues, in Tales of Autumn the issue is largely due to poor controller implementation. The choice was made at some point to completely ignore the D-Pad for some reason, forcing you to do everything with the analog sticks. Perhaps in part because of this, the game is extremely finicky when it comes to detecting objects you’re interacting with. Making this even worse is that the game sometimes doesn’t properly track what direction your character is facing, leading to odd situations where you’ll be briefly walking backwards for a little while.

What’s more, the menus also have problems. You can’t exit out of them with a button press, you need to move the cursor to an exit “X”, and moving from one option to the next is awkward and the game doesn’t always detect your directions properly. The very opening of the game, where you’re entering the name of your character, ranch, and pet, are a good example of this, as they use an in-game menu instead of the Nintendo Switch’s built-in keyboard widget. And wow, I cannot remember the last time it was so frustrating to enter information in via an on-screen keyboard, with the game maybe detecting every third button press.

Because of all of these issues, what would have been a standard Farming RPG experience becomes an excruciating one, and that’s before we even take into account that Stardew Valley, which is bigger, better-looking, more feature-rich, and includes full multiplayer co-op (not present in Tales of Autumn) is a mere $2 more than this game. With this being the case, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to buy Tales of Autumn – if you’re really looking for this sort of game, just spend the $2 more and get Stardew Valley instead. Or, if you already own Stardew Valley… well, just play more Stardew Valley. You’ll have a much better time than this game, I guarantee you.

tl;dr – Tales of Autumn is a Top-Down Action-RPG and Management Simulation in the “Farming RPG” style, and while its stronger focus on story and attracting and raising animals gives it a unique hook, it’s a terrible mess, with issues of conflicting tone and absolutely terrible gamepad controls… and all at a price only $2 less than the current king of the genre, Stardew Valley. Trust me, you’re better off spending the extra $2 on that game and skipping Tales of Autumn entirely.

Grade: C-

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