For the exercise I needed to start the game and note my initial impressions and any onboarding mechanics. Once I was comfortable with it, I needed to try playing with only one hand, with the sound off, and with my eyes closed to see how my experience changed. Most of the games I’ve played have adjustable audio and visual features built in, allowing players to change the brightness and quality of the images, raise or lower the sound, or add subtitles in different languages. A few years ago I had the chance to try an Oculus Rift VR headset, which included a dial on the device to adjust the image focus. Even though I’m nearsighted, and had to remove my glasses to wear the headset, I was able to adjust the image to see clearly. I was impressed that Oculus had included such a feature in the device, and I kept that experience in mind while testing Harvestella for accessibility. 

Upon starting the game, I was impressed by the beautiful visuals, lovely music, and the intriguing story. Harvestella puts you in a fantasy world threatened by monsters, natural abnormalities, and alien invaders called “Others.” The goal is to figure out the world’s mysteries while farming, raising livestock, and getting to know the people in nearby villages. Initially, the hardest part of the game was learning the movement controls, as the camera and movement controls were different to other games I’d played in the past. By default, the left stick on the Switch controls the camera, and opens the menu and inventory, while the right stick controls actions, movement, and lets you select materials from the menu. The character creation screen that appears after starting a new game has limited options for skin, eye, and hair color, but it allows players to create a non-binary character in addition to a male or female one. I appreciated that this option was put in, as not all games have that feature. 

Once I tried playing Harvestella one handed I realized the problem with the controls. Since the camera and menus are one one side and the actions and movement on the other, I would need to switch my hand position multiple times, making the game much more difficult. Since some actions (like finding and selecting menu items) require the use of both hands at once, they were impossible to do one-handed. The combat sections were even more difficult, as having to pause between moving the camera, my character, and hitting the attack button meant monsters killed me many times. And since the game has no options on the setup screen to move actions to different controller buttons, anyone with limited or no movement in one hand would be out of luck. 

Playing without sound was much easier than playing one handed. The game only has a few voiced lines, and relies on background music to set the mood, and sometimes alert you on danger lurking nearby. Most of the story is communicated through onscreen text, and even if monsters are nearby, they are easy to spot and confront in the specific areas that they show up in. Monsters also tend to approach you from the front, and don’t have sound effects like growling that you would need to hear in other games to warn you of an incoming sneak attack. Although the music and voice lines are a nice touch, they do not significantly detract from the gameplay experience. 

The lack of voiced dialogue does have a downside, as It’s basically impossible to play the game with your eyes closed. Not only is it very hard to tell where you’re going, a blind player would completely miss the story, and what they needed to do to play the game. Key game mechanics require sight to read explanatory text, learn how to move and act, and locate where to go next on the map. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this game is basically unplayable for users with vision impairments. 

I’m enjoying the game overall as it has a good story, and is well balanced between its farming and crafting side and its RPG like combat side. However, it needs a lot of improvement in order to be more accessible to people with disabilities. I believe allowing actions to be moved to any button on the joycons, and putting in more voice lines, would be good first steps for Square Enix to take in order to improve Harvestella’s accessibility.