I know a farm sim has me hooked when I actually bother learning the names of the characters. I’ve played enough Stardewcrossingmoon mashups in the past eight years that they blur together. There’s always the local shop owner, the carpenter, the fisher, a mayor type figure, and so on. The characters of Fields of Mistria, the latest farming life sim making waves, are so delightfully distinct that I’ve not just memorized their names, but assigned them nicknames in my head too—from Junie (Juniper) the bathhouse owner to Addie (Adeline) the town leader. And I’m in love with all of them.

Fields of Mistria’s ’90s anime-inspired cast with their capes and colorful hair caught my attention when it was first announced—I called it one of my most anticipated cozy games this year—but I knew there was a chance that their personalities wouldn’t shine as brightly as their character designs. That fear didn’t last long. About 30 minutes into my first season in town I’d already taken dozens of screenshots of my conversations. Charming dialogue is one of the high points of Mistria that Emily Price pointed out in her take on Fields of Mistria, and I couldn’t agree more.

One of my earliest interactions was with Eiland, the more historically-minded half of a pair of noble siblings. “As a representative of Mistria, it’s my responsibility to get you oriented,” he told me. “So if you have any questions… please ask my sister Adeline.” Unapologetically passing me off to his administrative ace sibling was an enjoyable wry side to his otherwise excitable personality.

On another night, bathhouse owner Juniper asks local doctor Valen, “a girl can’t get a little sloppy on a Monday night?” while they both sit at the bar. At a table nearby the inaugural session of a “Dragons & Drama” campaign is kicking off, where Celine the gardener tells me about her Druid character, her father Holt the general store owner has decided to embody “Bad Brad, the Bearded Bard,” and Adeline has abused the player handbook to create a character who has all dump stats except a 67 in Mind. That’s so Addie.

Later, after I’ve endured several days of standoffish attitude from surly blacksmith March, his brother Olric asks me not to judge him based on his first impression. Or his second. Maybe not even the third. “I guess you’ve gotta judge him at SOME point…” he admits, slightly embarrassed. But March is at the bar with everyone else that Friday night and, a little tipsy, tells me “Come here, c’mere… I’ll let you in on a little secret. You’re not so bad… haha.” Alright alright, I’ll indulge March at his own pace.

Mistria’s cast are just the right amount of earnest and full of humor without falling all the way into overdoing it. If you can stomach occasional puns, that is. When Ryis the carpenter offers to teach me some basic crafting skills with some wooden enclosures, one of my dialogue options is: “Let’s start my fencing lesson!” and I actually laughed instead of groaned.

They fall into trope-y archetypes, for sure, as is typical for character-focused life sims in the Stardew style, but the residents of Mistria have lovely little individual details that endear them to me. I found Juniper sitting at her front counter in the bathhouse on a rainy day nodding off and startling awake, for instance. Celine’s father at one point asked me to check in on her sometimes because he worries about her moving out into her own house and she lives on the side of the road as I’m walking into the town square.

Mistria does a lovely job of communicating all that personality with little flourishes that pull inspiration from Game Boy-era RPGs and classic anime. When Juniper delivers a stereotypical villainess “oh ho ho!” chuckle, she poses and sparkles shimmer around her. A new musical theme cueing just as a character walks into a conversation instantly sells their persona. Even some of the small daily dialogues around town will involve multiple characters all standing together chatting rather than each saying something unrelated when I speak to them. That sense of community and context isn’t just reserved for cutscenes.

I’ve only got two evenings clocked so far since its early access launch this week, but I already suspect that Mistria will wind up being my favorite farm life sim of this year.

The only thing I don’t love is that I can’t marry any of my new neighbors yet, as is customary in farmlife sims, but I knew that going in. For its early access launch on Steam, you can reach 4/10 relationship level with each character with future relationship scenes and marriage coming later in Fields of Mistria’s roadmap. NPC Studio plans to spend around a year in early access, adding more skills, cosmetics, enemies in the mines, and more as it goes.