Naturally, Ritual Of Raven was going to land on my radar as my love of farming sims is well-documented within my work. However, despite how enjoyable and well-crafted a lot of these games are, there are so many that just imitate Story of Seasons or Stardew Valley, with the only innovation being a reduction in restrictions. After a while, it becomes a real “why go out for burgers, when you have steak at home situation.”
Thankfully, Ritual of Raven caught my eye with its adorable aesthetic and unique magic-based gameplay. I was expecting to go in for a fairly reasonable time, growing some crops and maybe learning a little bit of magic along the way. But this game caught me completely off guard with a central mechanic that not only fits the genre but shakes it up in an engaging and interesting way.
Ritual of Raven begins with the player, an average human in an average world, getting pulled through a mysterious portal into Leynia—a world of witches, strange creatures, and actual magic. Players are greeted by a Witch named Sage who informs them that portals have been popping up all over the place, and the people with the power to fix it aren’t really doing anything.
Sage decides to make you her apprentice and begins teaching you the ins and outs of magic when a portal suddenly opens that she believes is connected to her missing familiar. She quickly jumps in and leaves it to the player to improve their magic and solve the problem with portals. Thankfully, you’re quickly joined by your own familiar—a raven named Raven—who will help guide you on your journey.
It’s a sweet story that focuses heavily on the importance of community and the bond between creature and nature. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and leans very positively—everyone is very welcoming and very appreciative of this strange new person being so helpful. It has a somewhat Miyazaki-esque vibe where there are no real villains, and even the more “antagonist” characters have a lot of nuances and are more sympathetic than bad.
But what really hooked me about Ritual of Raven is its gameplay. While it follows some of the fundamentals of a farming sim—going day by day, planting crops and tending to them—it’s the way the game executes on its ideas that really stand out. It begins with the game’s connection to its theme; Ritual of Raven focuses on the relation between nature and magic. Since elements of nature, like plants, have inherent magical properties, ripping them from the ground and touching them with mortal hands muddles the magic.
As such, the player needs to do all their farming work through magically activated Arcana Constructs. These living objects, infused with magic, will till the soil, water plants and reap the rewards for the player; however, it’s a lot more interesting than that. Since Constructs can’t act on their own, players need to instruct them through mystic Tarot cards.
“But what really hooked me about Ritual of Raven is its gameplay.”
Playing cards work on the same logic as coding—in fact, the game makes a little joke about this. Players need to arrange movement and action in a logical way that achieves their desired effect. As they progress, they can find cards that instruct Constructs to perform actions on specific fields, do things based on the growth stage of a crop—since plants yield different byproducts at different stages—and several more.
And while the basic fundamentals of farming are fairly rudimentary in Ritual of Raven, it does even more with its magical themes by having certain plants require a specific moon phase to grow—which can be changed through a magic ritual—having certain parts of the map locked off until the completion of a specific brew, and story-specific rituals, all which require the resources you harvest. Not only that, but unlocking new Constructs requires utilizing the programmer’s logic to solve little puzzles, which usually grants players a new card to employ.
It all comes together in a way that is both incredibly wholesome and incredibly satisfying. Players can be as hands-on or off as they desire, setting up code lines that can have Constructs planting, growing and harvesting plants in a single day, or taking it one step at a time, decorating the world and getting to know the locals. And the two styles of play work so well in tandem with each other since, if you set your Constructs up efficiently, you give yourself a lot of free time to do whatever you want.
However, it’s not without some minor issues. Reviewing Ritual of Raven on the Nintendo Switch, I did notice a considerable amount of framerate stuttering both on and off the dock. While it’s not exactly game-altering, it is noticeable enough that I began to wonder why a game with a pretty focused direction and relatively small world was having such a hard time maintaining its frame rate.
But like I said, this is a minor issue that may be limited to the Switch and can likely be addressed with a later patch—so let’s hope it does. Ritual of Raven makes up for even a minor issue with an abundance of style, utilizing an incredibly adorable retro chibi aesthetic and a really cozy colour palette. This is matched by a whimsical, ephemeral yet laid-back soundtrack that really puts the player at ease throughout the proceedings.
If there’s one thing I love more than farming simulators, it’s Indie games with unique ideas, and Ritual of Raven has them in spades. It takes the familiarity of the farming sim and wraps it around a unique central gimmick that starts off interesting and gets more captivating as the game progresses.
