Fields Of Mistria Review – But Can You Marry The Dragon?

You are a humble adventurer, drawn to the struggling hamlet of Mistria by a notice offering up an abandoned farm in exchange for your help restoring the town. Initially, you think that your role in town will consist of chopping wood and selling crops to repair bridges and upgrade the inn and general store. And while there’s certainly plenty of that, you soon discover there’s something much deeper going on. The ancient guardian dragon, Caldarus, watches over the land, but his powers have mysteriously weakened. A priestess seems to be trapped deep within the mines – and, as you help Caldarus and the Priestess out, you find your own magical power growing every day.

This is Fields of Mistria, a farming sim with a fantasy twist and a stunning art style that wouldn’t be out of place in a classic 1990s anime. I have loved this title and followed it closely since its Early Access release in 2023, and I was thrilled when the game entered 1.0 earlier this month. The new content only improves what was already a wonderful game, and makes Fields of Mistria feel like a full and complete experience – although I certainly wouldn’t object if they wanted to add more content in the future!

This review will primarily focus on the major additions to Fields of Mistria for its full release. First, the Town Repair storyline is complete – you can now fully restore Mistria, including the long-awaited Bell Tower, reach Mistril star rank, and even meet the Baron and Baroness of Mistria themselves. I felt that the conclusion to this plot was really well done, particularly the inclusion of two new Saturday Market merchants who add a decent chunk of content. I love Stillwell and his monster-slaying missions in particular, and am still far from completing everything he has to offer. The new Quests do require some very rare materials and can be a bit grindy, but I do think that makes sense as they are meant to be the epic conclusion of the game’s main storyline. When Mistria was fully repaired, I felt an extreme sense of satisfaction and like I had really accomplished something big. Also, the ability to customize music once you’ve fixed the Bell Tower is really great, because there are a ton of awesome tracks in the game.

The other big update in Version 1.0 is MARRIAGE! I have been patiently dating the adorable rancher Hayden for multiple real-world years, and being able to finally marry him was just as wonderful as I had hoped. I really love how customizable the weddings are in Fields of Mistria – you can choose things like the flavor of your wedding cake or the color of the flowers that will be displayed. I enjoyed that a lot because it made me feel like the wedding was really my own.

I also appreciate how the game handles dating multiple people. While you can only marry one – probably due to mechanical limitations, as it would be hard to have twelve partners move into your house – you can date everyone simultaneously with no jealousy mechanic. I tend to prefer that, because I like to explore the different romance paths but I hate making people jealous or upset with me. By default, characters you don’t marry send you break-up letters, but you can choose to disable receiving these letters OR disable break-ups entirely. Yes, you can keep dating even while happily married to your spouse of choice! I think that is honestly my favorite way any farming/life sim has handled such a situation. Not in the least because the game throws some REALLY hot secret bachelor/ettes at me and I wanted to date them WHILE also continuing to pursue Hayden.

Of course, with marriage comes the option of children, and Fields of Mistria’s 1.0 release does allow you and your spouse to choose to have a kid if you want. Currently, kids are stuck in the infant stage and don’t do much other than sit around and look cute. I do hope that further growth stages are added in the future – one problem I often have with farming sims is that kids are just kinda “there” once they’re born, and that’s currently the case in Fields of Mistria. 

I also want to note that I have never been a fan of just how slowly Fields of Mistria’s relationships increase. Gaining hearts with various characters takes a long time even if you shower them in Loved Gifts, and actually marrying a character requires having made significant progress in the game’s story, such as fully reaching the bottom of the mines. As someone who really enjoys romance in games, I do wish it progressed a little bit faster, especially with certain characters who become available much later on. Marriage requires crafting a ring that needs some late-game materials as well, which wasn’t necessarily my favorite choice.

Moving away from the specific 1.0 updates, Fields of Mistria was already on track to be one of my favorite farm sims of all time, and I think all the content it’s added since launch has really solidified this for me. The story is really deep and well written, and the characters interact with one another much more than you usually see in this type of game. The multiple goals (progressing in the mines, restoring the town, completing the museum, unlocking crafting/cooking/smithing recipes and cosmetics) easily provide hundreds of hours of content. The “Essence” mechanic, where you obtain magical Essence orbs through performing tasks like farming, mining, and fishing, and then unlock magical perks that improve your skills and abilities, is a really great way to make performing standard daily duties more rewarding.

I do want to note, though, that I am not huge into perfectly optimized farms with every part of the process automated, and thus the Essence system rewarding performing tasks by hand is a good fit for me. However, those who prefer building elaborate optimized setups may find their slower Essence growth frustrating. Fields of Mistria really does feel like a game that wants you to take things slowly (as with the aforementioned slow-growing relationships, and a couple of pretty resource-intensive town improvement tasks) and that may not be what every player is looking for. For me, though, a game that encourages taking things slow is exactly what I need to relax during busy and stressful days, and Fields of Mistria is the perfect game for that.

Overall, though, I fully find Fields of Mistria to be a standout example of the farming sim genre, and an absolute top tier game. If you like farming, magic, deep stories and character interactions, a rich world and a classic anime art style, then you absolutely must give Fields of Mistria a try. And did I mention DRAGONS? Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to my farm – Stillwell just posted a new monster-slaying request, I’ve still got Legendary Fish to catch, and my son Henrietta Jr. has probably just woken up from his nap.

Kate played Fields of Mistria on PC via Steam using a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game that was available at the time of writing, and our score will not be changed.