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I love farm sim games, and one of my favorites just left Early Access and became an official full game.
I don't know what you know or not, so, a farming simulator is a genre of video game where you have a farm. Stardew Valley is probably the most mainstream famous one at this point, but Facebook-era games like Farmville and many others are all in this group. It's a really big genre.
Early Access is a phase of game development where players are able to buy and play game, but it is not considered final or permanent. The developers are usually still working on some features, and seeking feedback on other features they plan to make. It's access, but early.
I've seen a number of people asking things like, "Hey, if I already play and like Stardew Valley, do I need to play Fields of Mistria? Do I want to?"
What's the Same
Both games are high quality farm sims. The standard story for these games was set up decades ago by, I think, Harvest Moon. (I'm not a games historian, so this is TTBOMK.) You are some kind of traveler or waylaid grandchild or etc. who is called to a rural village in order to take over an overgrown farm. You end up improving the farm and the town, befriending and usually marrying someone, and living happily ever after.
Both games have user friendly farming, retro pixel art, four seasons, a variety of town festivals, a mine where you also fight monsters, and a roster of both male and female villagers to befriend and marry. Both games have a museum (in Stardew, also a community center) that you fill with all kinds of things from town, and you receive rewards.
Both games have a set clock that passes whether or not you're moving or doing anything. You fall asleep on your feet at 2 a.m. In Fields of Mistria, falling asleep anywhere is just an energy penalty the next day. You also don't lose any items or anything if you fall asleep in the mine.
What's Different
Fields of Mistria has a distinctive, anime inspired art style for its residents, giving them some cute and different facial expressions and behaviors than the Stardew Valley villagers. The tone of the villagers overall is a lot nicer -- in Stardew, you have to win over most of the people in town, who are not nice to you at first. There is one really grumpy person in Fields of Mistria, and he stands out because of how rude he is.
In Stardew, farming is a giant part of the overall game, even though the game is large and has a lot of variety. You work on the quality of your crops, then process those crops into goods that also have a range of quality, and so forth. It's not as granular as in some games in the genre, but your crop quality affects some points in the game. Fields of Mistria does not have crop quality, and the game simplifies this aspect.
Fields of Mistria puts more focus on foraging, and adds bugs that you can gather and eventually use. The forageables are found in predictable locations that respawn after a while. In Stardew, the handful of forageables can spawn almost anywhere on a more randomized basis.
In Stardew, the town is surrounded by tiny folk spirits called Junimos. There is magic in Fields of Mistria, and you can use magic to help with chores at some point, but you don't have these personal little guys running around and helping you. There is a guardian dragon spirit instead.
Stardew Valley has more of a grounded fantasy setting, like, there are class issues in the town, there's trash and toxic waste where the town has gone to seed a bit, and you have a nemesis in the form of a Walmart clone called JojaMart. This also gives you an option to pay money instead of completing the Community Center, though this limits your late game content.
Fields of Mistria, instead, is more of a pure fantasy setting, where you're restoring the town somewhat in a vacuum, not against an enemy. There is no sense of economic competition between anyone or anything in the game, just that you all collaborate to improve the town.
I love the mining and combat in these games, so, in Fields of Mistria the mines have content gates between sections of the mine -- you must stop, talk to people in town, and then gather items in order to proceed. In Stardew Valley, you can blast through the entire mine and receive rewards after chunks of floors.
Stardew Valley also has some additional locations. First, there's the desert, where there's an additional, more difficult dungeon and a store with some interesting new items. There is also a festival in the desert now. You can also go to Ginger Island, a summery rainforest island with a whole new game worth of stuff to do. (This is the benefit of being a ten year old game that people continued to add to!)
Oh, and in Fields of Mistria, you can jump and swim. There are diving spots, like in Animal Crossing, and sometimes it's faster to swim across a stream or jump down a cliff than to run around these things. It's a lot of fun.
The Verdict?
I'll try to summarize in a sentence for different aspects you might want or not want in a farm sim.
Farming: Stardew Valley has more detailed farming and processing of farm goods. Fields of Mistria has simpler farming that still feels fun to do, and it's less of a focus of the game.
Mining and Combat: The Stardew mines are deeper overall and have more variety -- there are three separate mines by the end! -- and you can find and forge many additional weapons as you progress. Fields of Mistria has a narrower number of weapons and gear, but the mine layouts and enemy behaviors are a little more complex and may be more interesting to you. There are also tons of artifacts in the mines.
Villagers: Fields of Mistria has overall nicer people who mostly fall into anime types, like the mean girl ("OHOHO!"), the sweet girl, the rich girl. Stardew's people are a different set of archetypes, like, a spoiled girl, a granola girl, a geeky girl.
Economy: Fields of Mistria has no direct sales to the shop. This can be kind of annoying if you're used to Stardew! You must wait overnight to get more money, besides quest rewards. There's also no quality star, so each type of good has one selling price. There's no sense of competition with anyone in town, like is implied sometimes in Stardew.
Cooking, crafting, forging: Fields of Mistria lets you craft using anything from the chests on your farm. This is a great quality of life feature. It extends to the places in town where you can cook, craft, and forge on the go if you want.
Fishing (which I forgot, I'm adding this later!): Stardew's fishing is a minigame where you have to line things up and follow a pattern. To me, this is annoying. Mistria's fishing is a one click thing that's much easier.
Outfits: Both games have a lot of cool and fun clothes, but Stardew's sewing machine mechanic is unmatched in the category IMO. But I have more fun choosing new outfits in Mistria.
I love both games and I don't think anyone has to choose or stan one over the other, that's kind of silly to me. Stardew Valley has a larger footprint, but Fields of Mistria has a different enough approach and implementation that it feels "clunky" to me to try to go back to Stardew now. Only you can decide!
& More
I want to suggest two microindie farm sims that both have a twist.
The Last Craftsman: It's hard to describe this microindie game, but it has a novel system for crafting that I absolutely love. You farm and gather materials in order to build more and more machinery that does more and more things. If you need 10 Rubber for a project, that can come from literally any item that has the Rubber attribute, like trash or a child's toy. (It's actually not that different from the Stardew sewing machine.) It's so creative and cool and fun.
Shinehill: You are not a person, but you're pretending to be. Can you find your spaceship in time, while not raising suspicion amongst the human villagers? Is your human impersonation good enough? I love the confident worldbuilding of this game.
Have you played any of the games in this post? How do they compare to each other in your opinion? Leave a comment if you want.