By admin 
Covering broken games can be important. After all, it is a warning to others. However, sometimes problems with a game become so common that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to perform such a task. That happened to me Orange season on the Switch, a port of an original early access farming game for PCs that was too broken for me to continue playing.
Orange season starts out like many of these farming games do. We’re in a new town with a whole, huge farm to ourselves. There is a community that is excited to meet us and accept us as one of their own. There are quests to complete. You can also make friends with people as you get to know them. I was a little concerned at this point, purely because the text is so small in the Switch version of the game. It’s hard to read what people are saying to you, and I was worried that this might get in the way of completing quests. However, the diary is quite extensive when it comes to keeping it, so I was hoping that maybe it would work out.
Screenshots from Siliconera
While that seemed fine, actually completing my first mission was in Orange season highlighted a major problem with the Switch game. The boundaries are incredibly confusing. I repeatedly got stuck in landscapes when walking through areas that were clearly designated as places where it should be fine to walk and nothing stood in my way. While a bit of searching and wasting time usually freed me, another problem did not.
Sometimes you can just… go through fences, walls and buildings. When I discovered that most houses are closed off or perhaps even purely decorative, I was also shocked to discover that should I just walk up to them and walk in? Several times, instead of being able to walk through both open and closed doors after pressing the interact button, I went through them. It was disturbing!
Even more so if this would lead to me being absolutely trapped. As if I would get stuck in these spaces and wouldn’t be able to find a way out. This happened on a farm near a silo, when I grabbed some fruit that was on the ground and slipped through a fence. I had to restart the game, losing progress, to get out. It happened when I went to a storefront and slipped through and into a garden. (Luckily the door actually worked there and I was able to free myself and not restart.) It happened when I walked across an actual bridge to the top of a building in the “town” section, but somehow ended up in the trees and the edge of the actual building and had to restart to get free.
Screenshots from Siliconera
The layout of the city Orange season is also bad! It looks nice and all! I appreciate the sprite work and design that went into it. However, the execution makes it impossible to find anything or anyone. The mapping system only involves seeing hubs and where they connect. Icons below, when the UI is working, indicate who should be roaming the area. But there are no more detailed expressions of places or insights that show exactly where people are. There are games where this can work, like Fae farmbut that game also makes it a lot easier to track individuals. That doesn’t happen here. And because the spaces are so large, you can spend a whole day wandering around and not reach every part of the city.
I’m also a little disappointed with the amount of random items scattered around Orange season on the Switch. There are several reasons for this! Partly this is because the fruits and flowers ultimately make farming a bit worthless. There are countless of them on the ground everywhere. But I think these are also bugged? As I left the area near the beach and then returned, I noticed that suddenly all the coconuts were back. Which might not be a bad thing, since the controls on actual farming are so finicky and a crash could block another source of income?
Yeah, that’s what finally broke me. Orange season I ended up completely hindering my progress in one area on the Switch. As you progress through the farming game, you can eventually add animals to your ranch. I went with chickens first. Except after I got one, I experienced an issue where the game crashed every time I tried to enter the chicken coop. Considering how necessary that is to the farming experience, I felt like I was done.
Screenshot from Siliconera
Could be Orange season get patches that make it playable on the Switch? I hope so. That’s why I’m not doing a good review or giving it a score yet. Innerfire Studios and Soedesco made a statement on Steam promising patches and updates. If it is eventually resolved, it could be a valuable experience.
But for now, Orange season is not the farming game you should pick up on your Switch. There are too many bugs and broken bits here. I think I’d even call it unplayable if you’re someone who prefers the ranch elements of these sims. I’d say give the game a few weeks. See if the developer and publisher deliver on these promises about patches. Then turn back and look.
Orange season is available on Switch, PS5, Xbox Series
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