What I’m Looking for in an Adventure RPG: An Early Look at Freyr
This week we’ve got something pretty special! We’re taking an early look at Freyr, an indie title coming from EpicHouse Studios. Their team consists of six people spread across writing, art, music, and programming. I’ve had the chance to play through the V slice (for those of you who don’t know it’s basically an early playable demo of the game that shows off the core mechanics and the art style) and I have to say, I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen.
Freyr is an adventure RPG that combines farming and dating sim elements. Players get to customize their character at the beginning of the game. It reminded me of the Pokemon games where you finally got to tell Oak what you wanted to be in the game. But what immediately stood out was that the options for your character are woman, man, or neither. I knew that this game was focused on inclusivity from seeing some of the tweets and reading up on the studio, but I though that it was brilliant that right away there was a way for more people to feel represented in this game. The world that you land in doesn’t use currency anymore, they rely on a system of bartering. I love when games re-imagining the ways that there worlds exist together, I think a lot of what we see continues to rely upon some form of currency and I really appreciate the ways that the team has decided that’s not the direction they would go. The importance is on your character growing crops and helping out the other characters, not on hoarding wealth. The farming mechanics are what you would expect, in that you do have to pay attention to your crops. You plow, till, and then plant the seeds, making sure to water them until they grow into crops that you harvest. I’ve always enjoyed farming in games, and this reminded me of all the hours I’ve poured into Stardew Valley. It was chill and a nice change of pace from the escort mission that I was on with a different character.
The art style is pixel art with some hand drawn characters making an appearance during dialogue scenes. The scenes that I saw were mostly set in the desert, but there were other locations within it as well. All of the different locations seemed fleshed out and given their own personality and flair and I enjoyed seeing the different ways the vibes changed depending on where you are in the game. The music in the v slice is also pleasant to listen to. I appreciated the sound design in the footsteps that sound different depending on the surface type. The game is beautiful, I’m a huge fan of well done pixel art and this game did it for me.
There’s also a combat system in the game that is focused on melee. You have the ability to punch and kick your way through enemies. Your character can also find items to pick up and throw at enemies. It felt fairly clean so far, I’ll be interested to see how that continues to develop. Alongside the melee and throwing, you have the option to go stealthy through some of the enemy camps. These modes really made it clear that the devs were inspired by Zelda like games. There were options to just try to sneak through the camps or fight your way through the enemies in the first area. As was my nature, I tried to sneak, failed and had to fight my way through anyways. The combat feels tight, although there’s still room to grow.
Overall, I’ve loved what I’ve seen so far of the game. I’m excited to see how it grows and how it’s going to impact the gaming community. At it’s base, Freyr is a farming game, but I can tell it’s going to become so much more. Learning about a couple of the characters int he character events like Nathan and Go, it makes me want to play the game even more. I’m a writer at heart, with a degree in Creative Writing, so the story is what will often draw me to games. And the story that the Head Writer, NoHuA, is creating is one that drew me in pretty quickly. I want more of it, and that’s some of the highest praise that I can give. I’m eagerly awaiting the release and sad to say that it’s projected to be ready in 2022 to launch on PC/Mac/Linux.
If you’d like to support the development of this game, you can check them out on at these links below.
Twitter | Patreon | Website | Studio
I would definitely recommend it. This is a small team of only three people at the time of writing this article. They are a studio to watch out for and I’m incredibly excited to see how this game grows. I’m thankful to have gotten an early look at it and I’ll be watching closely to see future updates.
