Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (2025)

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (天穂のサクナヒメ) is a Japanese action role-playing simulation video game developed by Edelweiss and published by Marvelous and XSEED. It combines farm simulation with fluid 2D combat, and has sold over a million units. It was first released in North America on the 10th of November 2020, in Japan on the 12th of November 2020, and in Europe and Australia on the 20th of November 2020.

A novel adaptation titled Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin ~ Kokorowa's Rice Journal by Keiji Andō was published and released by Shueisha on October 4, 2021.

A manga adaptation titled Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin ~Gods of War~, by Jiji & Pinch, was serialized from November 26, 2021 to November 25, 2022 on Hero's Inc.'s Comiplex manga website.

An anime television series adaptation by P.A. Works was announced on March 9, 2024 and premiered on July 6, 2024.

Synopsis[]

Spoiled harvest goddess Sakuna finds herself banished from her opulent celestial home to an island overrun with demons. In the untamed wilderness, she must rediscover her birthright as the daughter of a warrior god and harvest goddess by weathering the elements, fighting monsters, and cultivating rice, the source of her power. By her side in this forbidding place is her guardian Tama and a group of outcast humans. Together, these unlikely companions must join hands to tame both the soil and the demons of Hinoe Island.

Developed by Edelweiss, the indie team behind the acclaimed Astebreed, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin combines side-scrolling action with deep crafting and rice cultivation in a powerful tale about finding one’s place in the world.

Features[]

• Refined Side-scrolling Platform Action - Using farm tools as weapons, chain together quick, heavy, and special attacks to take down demonic beasts, while mastering the magical “divine raiment” will be essential to grapple distant platforms, evade danger, and overcome powerful enemies.
• Detailed 3D Simulation-style Gameplay - Learn the ancient art of agriculture by following detailed steps from planting to harvesting to cultivate the perfect crop. As a harvest goddess, Sakuna’s strength grows with each rice crop, with attributes such as aesthetic and flavor directly correlating to her combat abilities.
• Creating a Home in the Wilderness - Sakuna’s mortal companions make weapons, armor, and meals for her using the materials and ingredients she gathers on her adventures, and completing quests for them will unlock even more options.
• A Fresh Take on Japanese Mythology - The heroine is part of a pantheon of gods and demons inspired by traditional Japanese mythology but featuring many unique twists. The story and world are filled with lovingly rendered details, some familiar and some completely original.

Gameplay[]

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin's gameplay can be segmented into two parts; rice farming and combat. Rice farming takes place at home on the Mountain Pass and is three-dimensional in nature, involving tending to the rice in your field in many different ways, such as adding water, keeping an eye on the weather, removing weeds or planting seedlings.

This is the "farming simulator" part of the game, and is based on real-life research into the workings of rice farms^[1], showing many parallels with real-life rice farming^[2]. It is through this part of the game that Sakuna grows stronger - as rice is power, she will grow stronger as her crops improve and grow. The player can grow their rice in a variety of ways, which in turn will influence how Sakuna grows - for example, if rice is grown a certain way according to methods learnt by the player over the course of the game, it can greatly improve the growth of certain battle stats, which will show in the combat portion of the game. The game operates on both night and day and seasonal systems, meaning time will pass ingame as the game is played; as the seasons pass, the player will tend to their rice in different ways, for example sorting the seeds in winter ready for planting in the spring, in which the player will improve the rice crop's stats via stat boosting items and fertilizer as well as protecting them from pests and disease through to autumn, wherein the rice is harvested and processed. Rice farming mechanics are introduced slowly over the course of the game, so as not to overwhelm, and as Sakuna does more farming, she will learn skills and gain access to equipment that make the process easier.

Said by Edelweiss to be inspired by the SNES game Terranigma, Devil May Cry, ActRaiser^[3]and the movies Princess Mononoke and Seven Samurai^[4], the combat portion of the game is two-dimensional and features a platforming element of gameplay; Sakuna can juggle enemies with many kinds of midair combos using her light and heavy attacks, as well as her raiment and weapon skills. She can also use her divine raiment to move around in ways that jumping cannot, providing an aspect of lightness and speed to combat. Sakuna will face many kinds of enemies on her travels across Hinoe Island, as well as traversing dangerous terrain and environmental hazards. The player can assign action buttons to whichever buttons they like.

In addition, Sakuna can equip various different kinds of weapons and clothing to help her out in different situations; weapons, masks and garments etc. all have different skills for different situations, and some can even be slotted with special items called "Spirit Boughs" that provide them with their innate skills, meaning the player's experience can be customised for whatever the player needs in both farming and combat.

The game is designed to offer a balance between farming and combat; given the nature of the items that the player will collect through playing the game, if a player works hard at farming, they will be rewarded when they return to combat, and vice versa^[5], allowing for freedom of personal preference.

Release[]

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin was developed by Edelweiss, a two-man team, who began working on Sakuna in 2015.

The game was first announced at E3 2017 and was originally scheduled to be released in 2019, however it was delayed until 2020 in order for the developers to refine the game.^[6][7]

Upon its release, the game was released in North America on the 10th of November 2020 by XSEED Games^[8], in Japan on the 12th of November 2020 by Marvelous^[9], and in Europe and Australia on the 20th of November 2020, also by Marvelous Games^[10].

Editions[]

See Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin/Editions.

Development[]

According to Edelweiss, most of the time making the game was spent making the rice-harvesting simulation as realistic as possible. ^[11] Part of the research involved the dev team growing their own rice at home via packets sent to them from the Japan Agricultural Cooperative^[12]. They studied literature on modern agriculture on the internet as well as from papers borrowed from Japanese governmental archives to get a feel for how the rice would grow ingame.

In order to ascertain for how the work performed by Sakuna would feel - since the game takes place in a past Japan analogue - the developers looked through agricultural archives at universities as well as historical archives from rural areas of Japan. To research architecture of old Japanese homes, they visited Kyoto and Shirakawa-go.

To consolidate their knowledge, the developers also talked to various people in the industry - ie rice farmers, wholesalers and agricultural co-ops, such as Shinmei^[13].

Soundtrack[]

See Soundtrack.

Reception[]

According to review site Metacritic, the PC version of the game game has received an aggregate score of 80/100, indicating favourable reviews, and on Steam, 93% of user ratings of the PC version are positive, indicating a "very positive" reception to the Steam version of the game. Likewise, the Switch version has an aggregrate score 82/100 and the PS4 version of the game has an aggregate score of 78/100, likewise indicating favourable reviews.

In the West, while the game was not a mainstream hit, it has maintained a fairly solid reputation as an indie hit, seeing a boost in activity upon Patch 1.14/Patch 1.08/Patch Ver. Jun 3, a new patch introducing the dual wielding of cats and dogs at home, boosting sales in the West. In Japan, the game was a mainstream hit, reaching #1 on the game rankings spot on the Nintendo eShop as well as Steam, reaching #1 and halting its publisher Marvelous' share price due to its unprecedented success^[14]. The game has spawned many items of merchandise in Japan, such as an arrange album^[15], plush toys^[16], clay pots^[17] and figures^[18].

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin reached 500,000 sales by the end of November 2020, less than a month after launch^[19], 850,000 by the end of January 2021^[20], and 1 million units by early June 2021^[21].

At the Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2020, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin was successful, being nominated for 5 categories and winning three based on user voting^[22]. Its nominations were:

• Game of the Year
• Best Action Game
• Best Indie Game
• Best Rookie Game
• Most Valuable Creator (Edelweiss)

And its wins were:

• Best Action Game
• Best Indie Game
• Best Rookie Game

At the CEDEC (Computer Entertainment Developers Conference) 2021 awards in August 2021, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin won an award in the Game Design division^[23]:

The attention to detail and design that went into the niche theme of rice farming and made it into a brilliant game is extremely outstanding. The overall gameplay is well-balanced without relying solely on that niche theme. This is an example of how even a niche field can be turned into a game by careful attention to detail and design, and it gives me courage to explore new themes in the future.

At the PlayStation®Partner Awards 2021 Japan Asia, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin won a special award, and an Edelweiss representative provided comment:

SPECIAL AWARDの受賞、誠にありがとうございます。今回の反響の大きさは、正直、我々の実力を大きくこえたものであると感じており、それもユーザーの皆様がこのゲームをおもしろおかしく広めてくださったおかげと思っております。本当にありがとうございました。サクナヒメコラボの企画が今後も色々と予定されていますので、どうぞご期待ください。

Translated:

Thank you very much for the SPECIAL AWARD. To be honest, we feel that the response we received this time was far beyond our expectations, and it was thanks to the users who spread the word about this game in an exciting way. Thank you very much for your support. We have many more plans for the Sakuna collaborations in the future, so please stay tuned.

Trailers[]

References[]