Farming Simulator: Signature Edition - Review

Everyone has gaming genres that they don’t play, for any number of reasons and one of those for me are simulation games, they just don’t do anything for me. So, I tend to jump into the Farming Simulator series every few years, because things never change to much from one year to the next. But with the Switch 2 and the Signature Edition, I figured it was now a good time to revisit. Was I rewarded with a bumper crop or was the harvest too lean?

While called Signature Edition, this is just mostly the same game that released on other platforms, though the Switch 2 release gets the Mercedes-Benz content from the get-go. The game gives players a few options when they load it up, you can opt to start with a tour farm, where the game will explain a number of things, or you can jump into an existing farm. For those who want a real challenge you can pick the Start from Scratch mode, which gives you a small amount of cash and no hand holding and then you are on your own. You can also tweak the settings, so you can give yourself more money and other tweak more, if you want the easiest option possible. Given that it has been years since I last played any game in the series, I jumped into the tutorial map, Riverbend Farm.

As this is a farming game, I am inheriting the farm from a relative, but unlike most anime farming games, my characters grandfather is still around. He acts as the guide for the tutorial, explaining how the fields work, what machines are used for what and so on. The game does a decent job of explaining the basics, when it’s the right time to plant certain crops and such, so if you do this you won’t feel to overwhelmed. But farming is just one aspect, you can also understand animal husbandry and forestry, the latter being growing trees. The former is taking care of animals and if you opt for this one, you will be constantly working on it, unlike a field which you can plant and forget about for a while. Choosing a specialisation is a nice addition, because sometimes farms are not all about wheat and barely and this makes the experience feel more authentic.

Depending on the farm type you go for, there are different things to spend your money on and this is where a lot of the micro-managing comes into play. Buying a new harvester might seem like a great idea now, but if it only gives you a slight increase in harvesting range, it might be better to save your money. The game will sometimes give you hints, if you are on the easier difficulties, so you won’t be left to your own devices, but when you consider the amount of machinery modern farms need, it is still balancing. I do know that the major new addition to this game is that of the third farming area Hutan Pantai, which is Asian in its influence. With that comes new crops like rice, which is grown in water and is another challenge to deal with, if you want to of course.

My issue with the gameplay is that again, it still feels like it did when I last played the game, which for context was back in 2016. For some folks, this might be all they want, newer machines and more crops, but for me, I was hoping for more. When the game opened with me choosing my character, even down to the branded clothes, I thought it might be more open, but nope, it was the same. The tutorial farm does give you a lot of guidance, but even if you decide you want to start in one of the other two locations, there is no guide there, you are on your own. Perhaps the most frustrating part from the game is just how janky it plays, when you are in vehicles it is not so bad, but any time you are on foot, it feels like you are trying to walk through molasses.

The humans sadly also suffer when it comes to the presentation, as they look like they are early PlayStation 3 day models, and it becomes really noticeable when you see the machines. The series has always and I mean always made sure that the machinery looks amazing and it does, the amount of detail is crazy, but the people are just not great. The locations are decent, being mostly the same as we have had before, except of course for Hutan Pantai. Given that I had checked out Farming Simulator on Nintendo Switch, I was expecting a lot from the game on Switch 2 and it delivered in some parts and failed in others. One of the weirdest parts is the UI and text being so very tiny, this is not exclusive to Switch 2, the text is tiny when played on Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, but it needs to change. The game also suffers from the occasional frame drop, not enough that it would stop you from playing, but it is noticeable when it happens.

Audio wise, there really isn’t much to say, the machines sound good and I imagine that CLAAS Lexion 8000 sounds the same in the game as it does in real life. The voice work is decent enough, it won’t be nominated for any performance awards, but it still does have some good to it. The in-game radio is nice, nothing licenced but still fun enough that you won’t immediately turn it off.

Farming Simulator: Signature Edition is a decent release, there is nothing here that is going to convince anyone who is not a fan of the series to give it a go, but if you do you will have a lot to do. The different types of farms and the different locations, mean you can replay without duplicating things to much, which is nice. The performance and visuals are where the game has the most problems, constant slowdowns, bad movement when on foot and text that is hard to see when in handheld mode. If you are a Farming Simulator fan and want to have the complete experience on the go, this is a great option, but is just not the bumper crop I know many were hoping for.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by Giants Software

The Pros

Has all the features, maps and machines from the other versions, making this a complete package

The variety in how you approach your own farm is really nice

The Cons

The game has a lot of wonky graphics on anything that is not machinery

The performance suffers often and randomly, which can be annoying when it happens