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After 40+ hours of Harvestella, I honestly think that this is one of the best farming sims and it might be my favourite JRPG to release this year. In the way that Rune Factory 1 revolutionised the genre by adding dungeon crawling to the time honoured Harvest Moon format, Harvestella actually does something different and takes the concept further, giving you a massive story driven JRPG quest with hours of charming side-stories and intriguing character story arcs on top of the farming stuff. And the farming stuff is actually refreshingly simple and restrictive in a way that actually makes the game better than its contemporaries. A lot of reviews complain about this, but I think its actually one of the game's greatest strengths because it fixes one of the genre's biggest issues: Pacing.

Time Management

In RF4 and RF5, the games give you TOO MUCH time and freedom to do what you want. You can easily craft 100 strawberry milkshakes by the start of Summer and never have to worry about RP and end up spending every day from morning to midnight. The games have stopped being punishing in any way and I end up burning out before the first year is over. In modern farming sims RP/stamina is no longer a resource you have to manage, dungeon crawling isn't something you need to prepare for and actually advancing the calendar takes forever because you can do so much in a single day. Harvestella fixes this pacing issue in a number of clever ways.
Cooking and crafting takes time. At first this sounds incredibly restrictive, but its actually a great way to push the calendar forward instead of burning out on the game within a single game month. You actually have to allot days to certain activities like "today I'm going to mine ore, tomorrow I'm going to save my stamina and do the dungeon." You can advance the calendar by just crafting all day and feeling like you still accomplished something even instead of feeling like you have to go and do 10 more chores before going to sleep. I can't emphasise how refreshing it was to be in that mindset, after being in the "I need to spend 30 minutes on each calendar day to maximise my time and I have 7 days until this crop ripens" mindset for so many years.
Questing also takes time. Not only are there a metric ton of sidequests and character quests in the game, but the fact that moving on the world map takes time means that you have to pick and choose your activities. Maybe there are 3 quests you need to do in Nemea, and 4 quests you need to do in Shalotta. It'll take you several days to complete them because of the time it takes to travel. This isn't wasting your time playing the game, its just moving the calendar forward so you can quest as an alternate activity while your crops are growing. The game gives you more tasks than you can possibly do in a single day, so take your time, let your crops grow and sit back and enjoy the story.

The Story

This is where it really shocked me. The story is actually really good and is a driving force for playing the game. After the first 2 chapters show you the ropes, the game takes off the rails and gives you the freedom to explore the world, visit the three other cities and assemble your JRPG party in any order you want. Each town has a lengthy storyline where you'll recruit companions and tackle the dungeon, but each is wildly different. And each one has tragic consequences for the characters involved that give them reasons to join you on your journey. I want to be as vague as possible because the game has done such a good job at hiding what the plot is actually about until you play it. The twists in the story are simultaneously set up well in advance while also being batshit crazy so its something you have to see for yourself.
Each town has hours of side quests to tackle, most of them being character driven little dramas. For example, one quest has you helping out a girl at the orphanage who doesn't want to be adopted. Another quest has you reunite a woman with her amnesiac fiance. Another quest is about a woman pretending to be a man's granddaughter in order to steal his wealth. Each quest comes in multiple parts and can take you across the world to complete, helping the world feel more alive as everyone's got their own hopes and dreams that you can help accomplish. The quests remind me of NieR's quests although most end in a happy ending instead of a murder suicide, though a rare few do end in surprisingly sad and tragic ways.
Each companion and certain other important characters also get lengthy 10 part story arcs that will take several in-game weeks to complete, and they don't end up being as straight forward as they initially seem. Cres' goal to cure an incurable plague doesn't have the outcome you might expect and Hien's initial story of showing off his submarine to the local kids ends up being a tragic tale of loss with an obscene twist at the end. Again, I don't want to say more, but the story surprised me in its quality and quantity.

The Combat

Weakest part of the game for sure. You can get by mostly by mashing and chugging juice but the boss fights are fun and there are a ton of different jobs to level and skills to learn. The game is fun enough as it is, though it could be way better. The game has FOEs and dungeon events like in Etrian Odyssey but the events can't kill you and the FOEs/FEARs don't chase you far enough to be a threat. Still, blows Rune Factory out of the water in every way so if that's your comparison point, its still a plus.

Conclusion

Its a game that gets better the longer you play it. Its simple in a good way, like a throwback to the Gamecube/PS2/DS era of games before things got too complicated and you had too many things to worry about on your farm. The story is weird and all over the place in a good way, where the story goes after you gather your party and visit the 4 major towns isn't exactly a surprise, but its a surprise how far the game takes it. Just play the game for yourself, accept that this isn't Rune Factory or Stardew Valley and its doing its own thing and enjoy the ride.