Farming Simulator: Signature Edition Review (Switch 2) - Old Grandpa Walter Had A Farm
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As someone who lives in rural California, runs a small homestead, drives goats around for half of the year and chainsaws trees for the other half, I’d been interested in the Farming Simulator series for a good while, and the latest one, Farming Simulator 25, received some excellent reviews.
My interests range more towards small-scale sustainable farming, but I’ve always been curious about the day-to-day of larger-scale operations that feed so much of the world. While Farming Simulator: Signature Edition’s ambitions don’t quite scale enough to make it much of a true management simulator, it does aim to provide a glimpse into some of the various tasks involved in farming, land maintenance, and other blue-collar jobs in a casual, sandbox fashion. The Switch 2 version felt like a great entry point, and I’d hoped that it’d be devoid of the performance issues present in previous Switch iterations. With my fingers crossed and boots laced up, I cautiously prepared to get down and dirty.
Three Maps to Explore Throughout All Four Seasons
No sooner do you create your character and lace up your proverbial boots when Farming Simulator: Signature Edition drops you right into your Grandpa Walter’s farm. With the game being fully voice-acted, your likeable grandpa informs you that he’s happy that you’ll be taking over his farm and keeping it in the family, rather than selling it off. Grandpa Walter shows you the ropes, and while the button inputs to do certain things aren’t always intuitive, there are helpfully on-screen button prompts for most tasks. He’ll introduce you to machines to till the soil, plant seeds, and reap your harvest. Hooking up to and backing up trailers is a breeze for a seasoned tractor driver like myself, and you can easily switch between vehicles for complex tasks. Also, you’ll need to keep an eye on your fuel and maintenance gauges.
There are three vastly different maps available to the player. I started out in the American-set Riverbend Springs, but I soon gravitated towards the other two maps, Hutan Pantai in rural Indonesia, and by far my favorite, Zielonka in Poland, apparently an old favorite from prior entries. They not only have different layouts and timings for crops and different starting vehicles, but the buildings look authentic to the regions.
A Fun Range of Odd Jobs and Cool Vehicles to Pass the Time
While you’ll start out with a few small lots to tend, the game’s difficulty depends greatly on your own preference. You can adjust the economic difficulty anytime in the menus. I initially went with “Easy”, as I wanted to have a more casual experience, and adjusted higher as I learned the ropes, which worked well. Higher difficulties simply present you with more responsibility vis-a-vis money management, and force you to plan your days and space out your hiring of workers a little more carefully. When you begin your game, you can also opt to play it as more of a manager, but I actually enjoyed partaking in a lot of the farming aspects.
Farming Simulator: Signature Edition isn’t the most technically-demanding or in-depth game, but it does have a surprising deal of nuance in certain regards, such as allowing you a great deal of freedom to play the way you want to, whether you want to raise animals, do odd jobs, or prioritize land acquisition. There’s a vast range of vehicles and equipment to try out with 400 vehicles from over 150 brands, from skid steers, tractors of all sizes, and utility vehicles built for just one purpose, such as mowing, making hay bales, or harvesting. You can lease them from the in-game shop for a cheap price, so there’s always the option to try before you buy. I also really appreciated how the various vehicles all run and handle differently, and are well-rendered down to their detailed interiors. The physics for the dirtbike, though, leave a lot to be desired, as it comically bounces all over the place at the slightest bump.
Starting with Easy mode gave me a chance to experiment with the various vehicles and tasks by leasing equipment on a job-by-job basis. If any particular job gets boring, you can hire an AI worker to finish it for you and move on to the next task. I’d often start something, let an AI worker take over, and then move on to the next task by swapping to a different vehicle with a press of a button, which made for a satisfying loop that kept the experience from growing stale. Whether you’re selling your harvested crops, grabbing feed for your animals, or else accomplishing various tasks around the town, there’s never a dull moment and you can fill each day with a myriad of tasks. In one day, I was able to harvest and sell an entire plot of land, treat an adjacent one with lime, send an AI worker off to accomplish a large-scale mowing job with rented equipment, and start a rock-breaking job all in the same day. You can even work at night, though visibility is poor even with your lights on. And thankfully, there are several radio stations that you can cycle through while in a vehicle.
Not the most polished Switch 2 experience, but performance is steady
For all of the care put into certain aspects of the game’s physics and models, it does lack in a few areas. First off, if this is your first foray into the series, you’ll need to figure out several things on your own, such as where to go to buy certain things, how to acquire necessary tools, like the various soil treatments for your fields, and where to find NPCs. Some of the button assignments feel odd, and you’ll be required to hold one or both of the shoulder buttons while using a vehicle in order to accomplish certain operations. Most egregiously, the on-screen text is too small for being 12’ away from my 52” TV, and hard to parse in handheld mode. That there is no way to resize the text feels like a pretty massive oversight.
While Farming Simulator: Signature Edition never strives to be beautiful, it is immersive enough that it can be jarring when corners are cut. For instance, the lighting in the morning suddenly transitions from barely visible to full sun coverage. There’s no gradual movement of shadows here. Also, there’s about a minute of loading when you first start up the game, and it will automatically save as you play, which pauses your adventure for about twenty seconds, halting all momentum.
Also, there was often no real way to locate certain points on the map. It felt abstract trying to figure out where to go to sell my grain crops in each of the maps, and often I wished for specific icons for certain shops and drop points. I was sometimes hoping for optional waypoint markers for your various odd jobs, as I’d often find myself checking the map multiple times to make sure I was heading in the right direction.
You Can’t Go Wrong on Grandpa Walter’s Farm
It’s tough to know how highly I can recommend Farming Simulator: Signature Edition, especially for the full price of $60. I feel that it would be an easy recommendation at $30 or $40. I spent a good ten or so hours with it, and felt like I had gotten the gist. It’s the type of game that has a certain, specific sort of appeal, a title where you can put a podcast on in the background and just mindlessly work towards a self-set goal. You can manage a small army of AI workers, or you can focus on just one aspect of its gameplay, such as farming or animal husbandry, and see how much can be done in a day. The three maps and 400 vehicles add a lot of variety and authenticity, but the underlying tasks, which have just slight differences, make for a simple gameplay loop without too much escalation in skill or difficulty.
While Farming Simulator: Signature Edition hits a few bumps, I definitely enjoyed the variety of gameplay on offer, and it was fun trying to accomplish multiple tasks at once and min-max my time every day for maximum profit. If getting up at the crack of dawn, hopping in one of many diesel-powered giants, and getting an honest day’s work done sounds more like fun than a chore, you won’t go wrong with Farming Simulator: Signature Edition.
Verdict: 3.5 / 5 (Great)
PROS
Large variety of vehicles, crops, animals, and tasks to accomplish
Three maps with distinct visuals, different layouts, challenges, and starting equipment
Performance is frankly solid on Switch 2
Fun to swap tasks in real-time and automate and micro-manage AI workers
CONS
No way currently to adjust the size of on-screen text
Loading screens can take a long time
You’ll pretty much need to figure out store and tilt (drop-off) locations on your own
What I’ve Played
Over 10 hours of farming, landscaping, and various odd jobs
Tried out all 3 maps and every season
*This review is based on a Switch review copy provided to the reviewer
About the Author - Joseph Choi
Filipino-American gamer, professional shepherd and farmer, author, and filmmaker/videographer living in Central California. First consoles were the Game Boy and Sega Genesis, and I've been gaming since then, with a focus on Nintendo and Sony consoles.
While Farming Simulator: Signature Edition hits a few bumps, I definitely enjoyed the variety of gameplay on offer, and it was fun trying to accomplish multiple tasks at once and min-max my time every day for maximum profit.