Mirthwood Review – Bury Me in the Sandbox

While a popular genre in the last few years, there is nothing easy about the development of a “life simulator” RPG. Stardew Valley focuses mostly on farming aspects, and Fable tries to take on a bit of everything at once. The new game by Bad Ridge, Mirthwood, is intent on mixing the two together – but promising the player quite a bit of freedom, too. Does Mirthwood accomplish this ambitious idea or does it falter and fall into a ditch? Let’s find out.

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The game sees you fill in the shoes of someone thrown out of their war-torn land, ending up in the apparently quiet land of Mirthwood. There, they will have to find out what hides behind a mysterious ancestry and discover the history of the Valdin, an ancient race. It is the trite story of the “chosen one”, destined to restore balance (or not) to the land. It’s nothing we haven’t heard before and, with the narrative beats being very separated by increasingly difficult combat, they won’t be of much interest.

When we first tried out Mirthwood, before the delay that took the game from a September to a November release, we found it to be lacking in both polish and mechanics. Quests seemed to not follow a clear pattern, game mechanics didn’t really work, and bugs were plentiful. My character got stuck in a chair before the intro was even finished. Clearly, that game was not ready for release.

Image Source: V Publishing via Twinfinite

Indeed, the new version is much more polished and has a few more quality-of-life improvements, but still will not guarantee a bug-free experience. My character got stuck twice in one hour fighting a bear first and a creature from another world later. Even though dead, they were still standing (or floating as it were), and I had to reset the game to be able to get back at doing anything.

Graphically, Mirthwood presents a 2.5D world with a hand-drawn vibe, which will enrapture those who love a good ol’ fairy tale book. The overall atmosphere, coupled with the classic medieval music, is quite pleasant and relaxing. It would be entirely possible to think about living our life in that land, tending to our crops, eating, and selling our produce. But, alas, that’s mostly where the positives end.

Image Source: V Publishing via Twinfinite

Creating a character allows you to choose your background, from a thief, herbalist, or actor. They will give the edge on several features of the game, but won’t really change much outside of it. Mirthwood promises that you are free to build your story as you like, either as a farmer or a fighter. That isn’t really the case, unless you’re fine with just throwing the main story out of the window. Combat is a big part of the main quest, along with several side quests. As such, finding better weapons and equipment is mandatory.

Leveling up just works on its own, Bethesda style. Doing something again and again will, at some point, cause you to improve, with no clear indication of when you’re about to level up as there are no experience points. For example, you get survival points while exploring and finding new places, and better at combat by swinging your sword at enemies. Leveling up Survival might get you, say, less hunger drain.

Interactions with other NPCs are not really required and don’t feel rewarding anyway. While quest givers have actual dialogue, others get generic descriptions such as “Mark flirts nervously.” You can insult them or talk about the weather or philosophical things, but the results are somewhat in between Fable and The Sims. Also, they can hug you but you won’t hug them back until you level up. Okay? Conversations often get stuck because NPCs get distracted by other events and your character is left there hanging. Hey, just like real life!

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While some side quests might present more intriguing situations than usual, Mirthwood seems to be stuck on having the player find random bits of text around, rather than having them witness events. That does not affect gameplay anyway, as most of these quests boil down to finding an item or killing a dangerous beast that haunts the place. There are moral choices at play sometimes, but they don’t really make that much of a difference.

Speaking of choices, the morality system at play not only shapes your character but also how other people react to you. For example, you might lose points for killing someone outright instead of hearing their story first, or stealing. This is a bit more dubious, as sometimes the game will not call you out on stealing, even though those items clearly belong to someone. Either way, characters don’t care if they see you do anything illegal, when you hit a trigger you lose morality points automatically, even if alone. I guess, your conscience is stronger than anything else!

Combat is not really rewarding, feeling slightly clunky. It boils down to swinging your melee weapon randomly, hoping for your hits to connect. There are light and heavy attacks, plus the usual dodge and roll, but no combos nor special moves, just keep your distance and hope to survive the encounter. Bows don’t make things any better, as your aim is stuck in a pattern and trying to modify it while you are fighting is not the easiest thing. Melee-wielding enemies seem content to just stand back and have you fire arrows at them until they die. But, then again, enemy AI is just generally mediocre, as they often get stuck behind trees and can’t do much more than run after you.

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Also, imagine the frustration of having no decent weapons, then killing someone wielding dual daggers but not being able to pick them up. Loot is based on random chance and you are mostly locked out of finding decent armor or weapons in the wild.

Luckily, tending to your house and farming seems to work okay. We get the opportunity to (re)build our house and place furniture, cook food, and tend to crops in a mostly realistic way. There is also a market that changes every day, so you can see which items you can sell for a profit.

Extracting resources, on the other hand, is not very exciting. You have to interact with certain trees and rocks and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t, with no clear reason or pattern. To make matters worse, it seems that outside of your farm, there are almost no resources. Spending time trying to desperately click on rocks and trees feels quite frustrating. Why is the rock just outside my farm no good for getting stone? Who knows.

While the game should be released as playable on the Steam Deck, at the moment it doesn’t run that well. The controls feel too clunky; trying to open the quick menu to switch weapons is easier said than done. But the death blow is the framerate drops, as even trying to play at the lowest setting doesn’t stop the game from crawling to a halt, often when it is raining.

Perhaps, Mirthwood might be worth picking up in the future, as the dev team has a whole line-up of updates coming up, like being able to fish, marry, and have children. At the moment, this RPG doesn’t feel ready for release outside of early access. With a barely-there story, clunky combat mechanics, bland interactions, and bugs aplenty, this fairy tale needs more time on the draft board.

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