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It's gutting for me to write a negative review, I was so excited for Mirthwood!
Unfortunately, the more I played, the more I realized it should've been an Early Access release, and had at least another year in development. None of the content currently available feels fully fleshed out or polished.
It has been UNBELIEVABLY buggy for me. Not talking about little things either, no, quests are broken, storage was broken, animals are broken, placement is broken. There's no point in investing in Livestock. Animals refuse to eat the food. I couldn't get them to eat Hay or Animal Food, and now they refuse to produce anything because they're starving.
Inventory is abysmal. It doesn't matter how many free slots you have, you can only carry a certain # of items per category. Say you start off with 4 max Materials you can carry at once: Wood, Stone, Copper Ore, Leather. You can't carry any more than that at a time without upgrading using 8 Feathers (which you find scattered around the map). Although that might not seem like an issue, it becomes frustrating very quickly, as this is a game where every resource counts, as the grind to get them AND the storage to keep them is ridiculous. I ended up dropping my items in (organized) piles spread throughout my farm. Thankfully, dropped items don't despawn.
Morality makes no sense. You lose Morality when you pick 'Evil' choices or Steal. If you open a chest that doesn't belong to you, you lose 5 points of Morality. Even if you don't actually steal the item, opening it and looking is -5. Often times you'll accidentally steal something nearby when trying to talk to a NPC. -5. I just finished a quest where I freed a woman FROM A CAGE, and it gave me +5, the same # of Morality points when I accidently open a crate with an Onion in it. I couldn't tell you what the point of this is, besides the exact same remark from NPCs about how I'm untrustworthy. Same goes for affiliation equipment, some clothes are Criminal, Nobility, Peasant, etc. But I don't think this serves a purpose either.
NPCs themselves are bland, boring, sooo lifeless. I've come across perhaps two, maybe three NPCs I was interested in befriending, but of course they can't be, for whatever reason, they're not generic like the rest of the citizens. It's a guessing game when I speak to them. Cards are cool, course, reminds me of Fable or The Sims, but none of it means anything. Even if you decide on a specific NPC to befriend, it takes FOREVER to level them up, and the process of doing that is the exact same thing over and over. It's such a bummer, I don't bother with it at all now.
I don't understand the Skill Cards at all, I only have a single active slot unlocked, despite having unlocked 15+ cards to use. Thought maybe it was like Fo76 where you can easily switch them in and out, but no, it locks that card in place when activated, forcing you to wait 1 in-game day before you're able to change it. I can only ever view all of my cards when I browse through the separate Skill categories, as the All section only shows 12, when I know I have more than that to choose from. Skills are forgettable, nothing special there, just small percentage boosts towards more damage, accuracy, chance, gain rate, etc. It's so miniscule, +2.5%, +5%, that's it. No thought put into making any of this interesting, or even fun, which is so sad, because the combat desperately needs it.
Combat is terrible. It's the absolute bare minimum. You have Sword and Bow. You can use both, but you're better off picking one and sticking to it, so it levels up faster. Engaging in fights isn't fun, it's frustrating and tedious. Movement and controls are clunky, but not in the i'm not used to it way, in the this doesn't feel finished way. Attacking with sword is moving left and right. Sometimes when swinging, you'll see it hit, but it doesn't do damage. There's a blocking mechanic, but blocking when the indicator pops up, has input lag resulting in an unsuccessful block. Same with dodge. Switching to Bow was my best decision, as you can use it while on horseback, and it's been a lot easier to tolerate. Sadly, there's still a multitude of issues. Creatures will often phase through objects and unless on horseback, you can't distance yourself enough to break their chase. Unlike NPCs, enemies stand still, not moving around or interacting in any way, only ever attacking you. Why is a pack of wolves chasing me alongside a lone bandit? It doesn't feel believable. You'll do mostly creature killing, but at least their loot is reasonable. A pelt, meat, if you kill a bear, you might loot a fish, makes sense, right? So how come when I kill a man fully decked out, head to toe, in steel armor, all he drops for me is a Red Apple?
Decorating.. not at all worth the frustration. What you're able to build/buy for your home is like 10% of what's used everywhere else. Homes in villages are decorated beautifully, so it hurts to know your home couldn't never look even a fraction like that. Items I've placed often go invisible or disappear completely. Once you repair the stairs, you get three rooms on a second floor to decorate, except the furniture you place up there will still be visible when you're outside of the house. Also I placed three chests upstairs, and they disappeared completely. So.. maybe keep your chests on the first floor. For now. Number of resources required to change the floor and walls is INSANE. No matter the room, the options don't change, so why do I have to spend the same # of resources for each room? It honestly feels like most of my time was spent grinding for Wood. You can place dirt or stone paths, just make sure they're where you want because once you use the Eraser, you can't place anything else. Paths don't prevent resource respawn, so grass, stones, trunks, logs still spawn on them. Actually, these natural resources spawn everywhere, even in pre-built structures, like the Mill or Chicken Coop.
Night time is unbelievably dark. I can't see anything. A lantern or even a brightness slider would help with this.
Quests are a MESS. Doing things out of the game's (very lacking) direction, breaks things so easily. I'm thankful I thought to keep backups of my saves, as there's no way to restore an old one, so if something is broken, you're SOL until it's patched.
Story is so uninteresting, even quest givers are boring, their lines completely flat. VA of the narrator is excellent, but that's the best you're going to get.
Mirthwood is NOWHERE NEAR a Sandbox, an ImmSimm, or even a Farming Sim. Farming is one of its many unpolished features, but game's completable without ever touching it. I believe it would've been a lot more enjoyable if it didn't try to be a jack of all trades, instead sticking to what makes it great, exploration. I enjoyed traveling around, discovering notes, scenes of environmental storytelling. Soundtrack is magnificent, creature sounds terrifying, and the aesthetic gorgeous, but sadly, that's not enough for me to recommend at its current state.