Last week, I started Fields of Mistria, a game my friends have been raving about for years while it was in early access, but which has just entered its full 1.0 release. And man, my friends were right. This game rules. It’s like Stardew Valley with a ton of quality of life improvements and some new features inspired by Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon on GameCube. I’m having a wonderful time. But you know, it’s a new game, with some things that are different than what I’m used to in other games of this genre, so I got a little lost and confused at times during those first few days. I don’t want you to be lost and confused like me. Here are some tips based on what I learned from spending too many hours on this game over the weekend, to get your Mistrian adventure off to a smooth start. Dear God, upgrade your bag. Yes, you don’t have enough space in your bag. You will run into that problem very quickly. I highly recommend splurging your first 1000 gold on a basic bag at the general store to give yourself ten more slots. Those extra ten will solve a lot of problems for a long time, believe me. There is another bag upgrade that unlocks later, but it’s not as urgent as the first. I know it seems expensive at first, but trust me and don’t suffer hours in the Mistrian Fields without room in your bag. Leave things there. That said, if you have 0 inventory space and see an interesting bug or something, go ahead and catch it anyway. You will leave it on the ground, where it will remain until you can pick it up again later. If you don’t catch it when you have the chance, it will disappear, but catching it ensures that you won’t miss anything. A little later in the game, you will also unlock a lost and found service that will gather everything you left in the city and store it in a convenient box for you. © NPC Studio Talk to everyone And I mean everyone, every time you see them! Most simulation games like Fields of Mistria allow you to generate affection with characters a very small amount, once a day, and have NPCs give you unique and repetitive lines of dialogue. But the inhabitants of Mistria have a lot to say. Every time you see a speech bubble above someone’s head, there’s something new they want to talk about, and talking to that person repeatedly will increase their affection for you faster than you expect. It pays to be a charlatan. You can jump Yes, you can. Check your settings to see which button is assigned to for your control settings, but don’t forget that you can jump! Jumping is useful because it allows you to overcome obstacles and is also useful in combat for performing jump attacks. It’s easy to forget that jumping is an option available to you, but it’s useful in a difficult situation. You can also jump in the water, which is nice because… You can swim. It’s not immediately obvious when you start playing Fields of Mistria, but you can swim safely from the get-go! You have to walk right next to a body of water and use the jump button to get in, and then use the jump button again to get out. Swimming is fun because you can access areas that would otherwise be unreachable. There are also dive spots, indicated by small circles of bubbles in the water, that you can swim to and interact with to find some treasure. Swimming costs no energy and has no drawbacks, except that you may scare away the fish if you get too close to them. © NPC Studio Enjoy Free Soup You can visit the inn once a day to eat a free bowl of soup. Simply interact with the pot on the fire in the back of the main room. You’ll regain a little health and stamina each time. It’s not much, but it can be a huge help on days when you accidentally overdo it. Check Item Descriptions If you’re interested in filling the museum (and you should be), don’t feel like you have to run around the museum every time you want to check if an item you have can be donated. When you look at an item’s description, if it can be donated, there will be a small museum-shaped icon near the top. Next to that icon there is a small box. If you have already donated that item, there will be a small green check mark in the box. Otherwise, it will be empty and you will need to save that item to make a donation. Choose that city rank At the beginning, you will be introduced to the city ranking system and asked to increase the city rank by building renown. While you will feel overwhelmed with quests, activities and tasks in the first few hours, the easiest way to get things done, earn money and see everything there is to see is to work in that city range. Complete the missions that appear on the board every day, and through them you will get a lot of money and tools that will make the rest of the game easier. This is also important because farming takes much longer to grow in Fields of Mistria than you are used to. Seeds are expensive! But doing quests will help you pay for them, and you can even get some free ones from grateful neighbors. © NPC Studio Create some chests As soon as you are taught how to create, make several storage chests. You need more storage, even if you think you don’t. This is pretty self explanatory, especially since I also recommend that you… Save all crafting materials. At first, you’ll end up with a lot of things in your possession that you’re not sure what to do with. Many will have descriptions that say they can be used for crafts. My advice is to keep anything that suggests it could be a crafting material, especially if it is rare or limited to a single season. You don’t want to end up in the fall needing only spring items to cook with. As time goes on, you’ll have a better idea of what can be removed, but for now it’s best to avoid selling things in any way. Get a Better Sword One of your first crafts, besides chests, should be a copper sword. Your starting sword sucks and does almost no damage. Get a better one before trying mines. © NPC Studio Fishing and ranching are waiting for you. While Fields of Mistria will gently introduce you to systems like crafting, bug trapping, and farming, there are some systems it doesn’t tell you about and leaves you to find on your own. One is fishing. All you need is a rod, which you can buy at the beach shop or make yourself (I recommend the latter). Once you have a rod, you’ll get a little fishing tutorial and that’s it, but the game won’t hand it to you without prompting. You have to look for the rod yourself. The same goes for livestock, if you want to have an animal farm. This is a little more complicated. First you will need to visit Ryis’ shop and buy a blueprint for the building you want: chicken coop, cow barn. Next, you need to free up space on your farm and set it up. You will then need to provide the necessary materials in the donation box in the building. Once you have all that, the building will be complete, but you’ll still need to go to Sweetwater Farm next door and visit Hayden, where you can choose Adoption at the counter to adopt the animal of your choice. That’s a lot of work! You’ll also want to be prepared to feed whatever animal it is; You can get food by cutting grass on your farm, but animals will also eat all kinds of other things. Raising livestock is a big responsibility, so make sure you are prepared for it. Relax. Above all, relax. Fields of Mistria is a very calm game and there is no rush to do anything in particular. You can fart on your farm as long as you want, spend all day socializing or whatever, without consequences. If you feel like you need to rush to finish everything season-specific in that season, that’s a valid way to play, but I recommend you take your time and enjoy the ride. The seasons will always return and Mistria will always be waiting for you.
