Tales of Seikyu Review

Are you a fan of farming sim games that are reminiscent of titles like Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons? Developer ACE Entertainment is working with publishers Fireshine Games and Logoi Games to bring Tales of Seikyu (not a part of the TALES series) to fans of the cosy farming sim genre. The game takes place on the titular island of Seikyu, far from the human world, where shape-shifting yōkai spirits live in balance with nature.

One thing that makes Tales of Seikyu unique is that the protagonist is a shapeshifter, so they are able to transform into multiple forms, like a fox or a boar, depending on the obstacles that they come across. So when you customise your character, you not only get to select their look for the human form but also for when they transform into a fox, their regular form. 

You get to select sex, hairstyle, hair colour, lips, skin, eye colour, and markings. I love how my character can have cool-looking face paint. For the fox form, you get to select the main and secondary fur colours along with their eyes. So my fox has teal fur and purplish-pink eyes, and my girl has red hair, teal eyes, and a cool face paint design.

Tales of Seikyu has three different modes to select for the type of experience you want for your journey: The Story Mode is for players who want to focus on the story and have minimal combat interruptions. The default is the Recommended Mode, which is a balance of story and combat. Then, finally, we have Challenge Mode, which is for players who want to test themselves and want a tougher combat experience to go along with the story. These settings can be changed at any time during your adventure, so don’t stress about this too much. 

The story has you travelling to Seikyu Island, which was home to your ancestors, with your sister Kon (in her adorable fox form) to learn what happened to your parents and the rest of the fox clan. Your character's whole family was made up of shapeshifters who regularly took on the form of foxes, and you are able to speak with their spirits by visiting the numerous fox shrines placed around the island. Some of your ancestors are very kind, while others are quite spicy and have a bit of an attitude.

As soon as you land on the island, you will see that a lot of the yōkai that you meet here take on human forms, though they aren’t all friendly. The controls in Tales of Seikyu are very straightforward: move your character with the left thumbstick and control the camera with the right. Transforming is done by hitting one of the triggers, and the face buttons are used for actions like jumping and attacking. As you play, you will unlock a variety of things you can change into, like a boar that helps with tilling, a slime for when you need to swim, or a bird to take to the skies.

Tales of Seikyu doesn’t hold your hand through everything, which can be a good thing and can be very frustrating at the same time. Basic things that you need to learn to do, like farming, crafting, and picking up resources you find, are left for you to figure out. So it takes some trial and error to learn what you need to do to accomplish each job.

Every in-game day, you are given tasks that you need to complete, like finding a certain item. The bad thing is that since you aren’t familiar with them, you won’t know where you need to go to find them, so you will have to wander around the map until you happen to come across whatever you were searching for. If that wasn’t annoying enough, these side quests are timed so you can’t just wander aimlessly as the hours pass and the days quickly whizz by, as the timer would run out before you were able to finish the task. Fortunately, every time you visit a new fox shrine, you will be able to fast travel to that location from a different checkpoint, which helps to cut down the amount of walking you need to do.

The extra challenging part is when Tales of Seikyu asks you to get an item that can only be acquired by crafting or by making a specific tool or device that is needed to obtain it. The game will let you know what materials you need for building, but the way to craft it may require a specific ability that you don’t learn until you look up the details. 

Like other farming sims, you can become friends (and sometimes more) with the other residents in town, building your relationships as you play. Growing these bonds may take a long time, so it can feel grindy after a while, especially since the random events that pop up to strengthen your friendship don’t show up very often.

Visually, Tales of Seikyu has vibrant 3D environments, and beautiful, hand-drawn characters look very pretty. Though there are some texture issues and clipping going on here, and though it doesn’t ruin the experience, it still manages to capture the feel of magical Japanese folklore. There are a lot of different NPCs to interact with and a variety of ages, which was great for the ones I was trying to romance. I find it weird when all the available love interests are substantially younger than me! Though there wasn’t a large variety of enemies you battled against, it felt like I was fighting the same foe over and over again.

Even though there are a few drawbacks, Tales of Seikyu is still a really fun game that is addictive and engaging. There is always something to do, whether it’s fishing, building, cooking food, farming, or creating furniture to decorate your house. The dynamic time system moves from day to night, and the weather system adds a lot of variety since the environment changes with the seasons. It is worth checking out if you are a fan of farming sims or are interested in Japanese folklore. I especially love the yōkai and all of their transformations. It is so fun to run around the island as a fox or transform into a bird or slime!