New games on old consoles will probably always be exciting to me. Old consoles all have their unique strengths and weaknesses, and seeing developers navigate them is interesting. I wish the big, veteran publishers would get in on it. New Nintendo games on old Nintendo consoles? Gimme.

Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition is interesting to me now that it’s actually on Genesis/Mega Drive. Initially, it was released digitally as a bonus in the collector’s edition of Farming Simulator ‘25. However, since it was authentically developed as a Genesis game, it’s not much of a stretch to put it on a cartridge for the actual hardware. Which is what they did. And Strictly Limited Games sent me a copy (you can order one yourself at this link), and I’m pretty jazzed to have it. But there’s one big question: can Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition stand on its own, or is it obvious that it’s just a bonus side game?

The latter. Definitely, the latter.

TIME FOR THE AFTERNOON BARN RAISING

As the name implies, Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition is a scaling down of the extremely popular Farming Simulator series. You run a farm. That’s the whole of it, as I understand. Personally, I haven’t played a Farming Simulator game, but it’s something I’d probably enjoy, so maybe I should one day. 

However, I can make some assumptions. First, I assume that there’s more than growing grain in the normal futuristic version. The end. That’s all my assumptions.

Yeah, in Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition, you can do one thing, and that’s grow grain. You still have to, uh, tend to the fields. You have to, um, make it all chunky (plow? turn the soil?), then plant the seeds, then wait until the grain grows, then harvest it.

Listen, I’m not actually too far removed from farm work. I grew up in a rural area. Out here, you sometimes go to visit a friend and their parents enlist you into simple farm chores. Good on them, children aren’t good for anything, so they may as well labour in the fields. That doesn’t include driving tractors, though. So, I’m clueless on the terminology.

Plow, plant, harvest, sell. That’s the lot of it.

DRIFT FARMING

Okay, that’s still simplifying things. On the map, there are a variety of fields of different shapes and sizes. My strategy was to circle the farm plowing, then another lap seeding, then another lap harvesting, dumping the load when necessary.

It also seems like you need to drive in a straight line and kind of zigzag through the fields. I found it more effective to just kind of drift back and forth along the margins, because that tends to cover ground more quickly, just with how the collision detection works. Rocking the d-pad back and forth strains the thumb after a while. However, driving in straight lines, even with the biggest and best farming equipment, looks like watching a progress bar.

Yeah, so, on that thought, you use the money from selling grain to not only refuel and reseed your equipment, but you can also buy better vehicles. These usually go faster and cover more ground, so it’s worthwhile if you don’t want to be doing this all day.

GREEN ACRES

You can also buy new farms. However, there is no automation, and you can’t just enslave children to do the work for you, so you can only work one farm at a time. And with the speed at which grain grows, by the time you’ve done a lap with the seeder, it’s time to harvest, so it doesn’t cut back on waiting. Essentially, you just progress to the next farm. Like, you’re opting into proceeding to the next level. And it’s not like you’re planting a new crop or handling livestock or something different. You just do laps in a different field setup.

It’s maybe what you’d expect from a game that was built as a pack-in for another game. I’ve also played worse homebrew games. I just think with a bit of creativity, Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition could have been something more. Different crops seem like the most obvious step up. You could then create something like SimFarm’s stock market to sell your produce at the right time. Being able to upgrade your farm itself would give a better sense of progression than saving up for the best equipment. Better variety in the farms would be fun. I know it has “Simulator” in the title, but have you considered a farm in an active volcano?

As it is, there’s not much to chew on. There is a somewhat meditative feeling to the whole process, not unlike Power Wash Simulator. And Power Wash Simulator is basically just one thing the whole time, as well. However, Power Wash Simulator has variety. It changes things up on a level-by-level basis. As such, there’s longevity and a smidgen of depth, which you don’t really get here.

FARMING ENTHUSIASTS

It’s not that Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition is without love behind it. After all, to build something on the Genesis, you need to be committed. The games of the 16-bit era may have been less complex, but that doesn’t mean it’s not difficult to learn the hardware and put a game together. And it’s niche, so no one would be getting rich off of it.

And everything works. There isn’t much to the game, but it’s more functional than you’d maybe expect from a licensed pack-in. It’s not at all a bad game, and playing it on Genesis hardware at least, for me, adds to the appeal. The problem is, as I’ve said, there’s no chew. Regardless of how you feel about the game, it probably won’t entertain for that long, which will mean that the shelling out for the cartridge is more in the domain of enthusiasts.

On the other hand, the music is weirdly good considering it doesn’t play while you’re actually doing the farm work. Instead, it kicks in when you pause the game, and each field has its own track. The music was done by Chris Hülsbeck, who is a veteran composer. I’d say this is a weird addition to his discography, but, truly, it hardly even ranks compared to his other credits.

TIME FOR THE MIDNIGHT BARN RAISING

Farming Simulator 16-Bit Edition doesn’t really have an ending, either. You can fail if you run out of money, which is like an ending, just not one that you should be shooting for. Also, not one that’s really likely, even if you’re on the hardest difficulty. This isn’t terribly out of line with the conventions of the simulator genre was running during the 16-bit days (such as SimFarm), so it maybe fits the system. In fact, I probably would have liked this game as a kid. For a while, anyway.

It’s a game that is interesting just in the fact it exists. I think it’s neat. You probably already know if you think it’s neat. However, it’s hard to give it a recommendation beyond that, since it’s so insubstantial. At the same time, it isn’t straight-up bad. It functions, it just doesn’t strive to do anything beyond that. If you’re curious, you can always buy the digital version of the game, rather than shelling out for the cartridge.

5/10

This review was conducted using a physical Genesis cartridge provided by the publisher. Screenshots were captured through a Retrotink 4K upscaler (then downscaled when captured). The note I got says it runs at 50hz (PAL), but I’m not sure that’s true because it seemed to run normally.