8-Bit Farm

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Without a doubt the most prolific developer and publisher of Management Simulation games on Nintendo Switch is Kairosoft, who specializes in games with a retro-style isometric pixel art style, often with the word “Story” in the title. As of this writing, Kairosoft has released 61 games on Nintendo Switch, most of them Management Simulations.

After their earlier games, Kairosoft had established a few templates for their Simulation games that later games would largely follow. Game Dev Story established a Simulation-style game more focused on managing employee time and focus, Hot Springs Story established a Simulation style in line with Theme Park Simulators where you try to cater to guests’ tastes to maximize attendance and income, and Epic Astro Story established a Simulation style akin to games like Sim City, where you’re building out a town or settlement.

8-Bit Farm originally released on mobile devices in 2017, then saw a port to Nintendo Switch in 2020, then to PlayStation 4 in 2021, then to PC in 2022, and to Xbox One in 2024. And this is one of the “cater to guests” sort of Kairosoft games, with players building and managing a farm with the specific goal of making it a popular tourist destination.

Wait, didn’t Kairosoft already do something like this? Well, yes – their earlier game Pocket Harvest was pretty much the exact same concept. Except 8-Bit Farm takes everything that game does, and makes it awkward, confusing, and nonsensical. Now in order to plant crops you need to buy permission to plant more crops? And this game has multiple kinds of currencies different items must be paid for with, including gold and… photos of flowers, livestock, and vegetables? And this game often makes things as inscrutable as possible, such as by refusing to let you create upgrade items for your staff because you don’t have the necessary resources for them… but not telling you what those resources are.

As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals, paired with repetitive chiptune music. Apart from this forgettable music, everything about this presentation is really endearing, though by this point we’ve seen more or less the same thing in numerous other Kairosoft games.

Overall, I feel like this game has some potential for fun, but everything this game tries to do, I feel like Kairosoft did better already in Pocket Harvest. And if you’re looking for a farming Management Simulation from Kairosoft, I recommend you get that game instead.

tl;dr – 8-Bit Farm is a Management Simulation where players manage their own farm, trying to make it an ideal tourist destination. Developer Kairosoft already made a game like this in Pocket Harvest, and that game was much better than this, thanks to 8-Bit Farm’s confusing, nonsensical design that will frequently leave players frustrated and confused. If you want a farming game from Kairosoft, get Pocket Harvest instead of this.

Grade: C-

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