Ashwood Valley - Switch Review

Ashwood Valley's key art. The 2 siblings can be seen laying in a field of grass and flowers, one holding a wand, the other holding a bunny. A chicken is chilling in the background.

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Ashwood Valley is a new cosy farming game, developed and published by RedDeer.Games and released on June 5th for the Nintendo Switch. Plant crops, befriend animals and work towards saving your sibling, who has been turned into a cat. I played it on the Switch as well as Switch 2 and can confirm that the game runs well on both of them.

Oh Boy…

In a previous review I mentioned that a lot of the recently released farming games have been rather hit or miss for me. Unfortunately, this one falls in that miss category. The artstyle looked very cute, so I did get my hopes up, but I was let down rather quickly. Let’s get into it.

The player characters surrounded by 3 chickens. One is black, the other ocean themed and the third looks a bit like a carrot. — Would the carrot chicken taste like carrot or like chicken?

Gameplay

Ashwood Valley plays a lot like your standard farming game, just very simplified and stripped down. You can still follow the regular farming routine that most games offer: tilling the soil, sowing seeds, watering your crops and harvesting them when they are grown. So far so good. You can forage for flowers and grass, and befriend cute wild animals by petting and feeding them. They aren’t very picky and most of them will eat almost anything you offer – no need to go out of your way to get special snacks, for most of them at least. However, that is pretty much everything the game has to offer.

There is no chopping wood, no mining rocks, and no fishing. You can not build relationships for friendships with the locals either, not that there are many other people around in the first place. There is no money system in the game, so forget about selling your hard-earned crops or produce for a profit. On the bright side, your inventory appears to be endless, so you won’t have to worry about all the crops cluttering up your space, which is a neat addition.

Since there is no money, you can’t actually buy any seeds. Instead, you will either find them out in the wild by cutting down grass, or you can get them for free from Old Lady Maya, who visits the town every week and offers you one of three different seed types to choose from. Unfortunately, most of her seeds aren’t even for the current season as they appear to be entirely random. Thankfully, she stays in town from Friday to Sunday, so you have multiple chances to snag some seeds that you want.

The Town

While the environment is pretty, it is incredibly hard to navigate at times. Sure, there is a map, but it does not show your current location. It is rather hard to navigate as most places look way too similar, and it is very easy to get lost. The town itself feels empty, with only a few characters to talk to. They all stand in the same spot all day and there is hardly any reason to ever interact with them. They barely have any dialogue and only offer a handful of side quests, making it feel like a bit of a waste of time to seek them out for a chat.

All this really just leaves you with the few activities you can do on your farm, as there is nothing else to do. The days feel very fast-paced as you are normally back in bed before 9am. You basically get out of bed, water your plants, pet and feed the animals, and then head back to bed to start all over again in the morning. There isn’t even a real reward for farming and foraging, and no actual need for it unless you feel like doing it for fun. The only thing that really offers you any kind of progression is befriending the animals that live around town.

The player standing in a grove in the forest, talking to a magial spirit cat. The cat is prompting the player to appreciate the pretty environment around them. — Anything you want, spirit kitty

The Animal Plot

Ashwood Valley‘s story is incredibly brief. Which does not have to be a bad thing if it was engaging or fun to complete, which it unfortunately isn’t. There aren’t many quests you need to complete to beat the game. Basically, you will have to befriend all 14 animals by petting and feeding them. That’s it. Most of them can reach maximum friendship in about 10 in-game days. Although this is different for two little mice that want cheese, which you need a recipe for! I admit, the animals are cute. Once you tame them, they will hang around near your house and some of them will give you eggs and milk.

You can even feed them special foods to make them change colour and produce different items! Like pistachio-coloured cows, or mango chickens – though the changes are only visual. That is really the only thing you can do with them. All animals that aren’t chickens or cows give you nothing. Be aware too, the animals lose friendship super quickly and will leave to go back to the wild if you neglect them for a few days.

The Actual Plot

After you’ve befriended all animals, you can finally clear the curse off your sibling! Oh yeah, your sibling was turned into a cat after you landed in this strange world through a failed magical spell, so now you have to go and save them! Did I not mention that yet? This is such an unimportant part of the game that I completely forgot to bring it up until now. Oopsie. Anyway, once you beat the game and break the curse, your beloved sibling turns human again. And then…nothing. No cutscene, not even a “thank you”. It really makes you wonder why you even bothered to do all that in the first place.

The player character petting a little frog — I love you too, froggie

Graphics & Audio

While the game looks very empty, at least the things that are there look cute. The animals are adorable, the character portraits are pretty, and the items look good and are easy to tell apart. The seasons change the entire map’s colour and vibe, with some decorations changing as well. My only pain point is that the game is fairly zoomed in, which did make me a bit motion sick at times when moving around.

The audio for using tools is fine, the animals make adorable noises when you interact with them and the environment sounds calm, yet lively with birds chirping, rustling wind and crunchy footsteps in the grass. Alas, the game does not appear to have any music whatsoever, unless you enter your inventory. I’m not sure if this is intended or a bug, but whenever you open your bag the music hits you like a brick, interrupting the otherwise very quiet game.

The player is talking to a Winter Fairy named Pixie, who is telling them about her jewlery. Pixie has long, light blue hair and is wearing a fluffy blue coat. — At least the character designs are cute!

Longevity

There is no easy way to say this. I personally do not think that Ashwood Valley has much replayability at all. I beat the story by the first week of summer which was about 1.5hours. Unfortunately the game gives you no reason to keep playing beyond that. The game looks very cute, and they could have done a lot more with what they have, but as it stands there just isn’t a lot to do.

Final Thoughts

It’s a shame, really. This game had a lot of potential but nothing has been done with it. If anything, it feels more like a prove of concept rather than a full proper game. It feels rushed. It’s short. There is barely anything to do. While it looks cute, it just feels so very barren.

It also appears that there will be paid DLC in the future, as there is an Extras menu that links you to the eShop, though I can not seem to find what it is going to be or whether it will me cosmetic only or add content to the game.

I’m sorry, I just do not feel comfortable giving this game a rating. If you want to get the game, please look at some gameplay videos first. Even on sale, this one would be a hard pass from me.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

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Charlie

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Ashwood Valley – Switch Review