TL;DR Cute, quaint slice of life game that is definitely worth trying out the demo if you like Rune Factory and Turn Based RPGs.

I really like the concept behind this game. It definitely has a more Rune Factory than Harvest Moon, but probably the game in that genre that I am reminded of the most is Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. In A New Beginning, you get to decide how to spend resources to actually revitalize the failing town, and that's what you get to do in Rite of Life.

At the start, there isn't much for you to do outside of grind combat and get used to the way the game works. Stepping out into the Forest you can immediately see where all of the other inspirations listed in the description come in - while walking around a procedurally generated Forest you encounter random battles that are fought in a turn-based combat system that uses a rock-paper-scissors style effectiveness for attacks. Dark Cloud: check. Pokemon: Check. Monster Hunter: Check. At first the enemies are pretty tough, but there's no apparent penalty for taking your time and resting as needed to slowly work your way up to better weapons and armor to get deeper into the Forest.

I have not gotten too deep into the game yet, but one of the things that strikes me is the way The Forest works. It is procedural, and seems to change when the day changes over. I have talked to someone behind the scenes on twitter about this and it sounds like that is going to be changing in the final product - something more like one consistent map so that you feel like you are exploring deeper and farther as you get stronger, but you also get to know where you are. This is the setup I suggested in a video I made (see below), but after some thought I think I may have come up with something in between the two extremes - basically dungeons. Not dungeons in the traditional sense, but areas deeper into the Forest where you exit the Forest and enter a new area that is more procedural in nature. That way when a player thinks "I need to go here to get a specific item", they still have an idea of where they need to go, but then they have to stay on their toes because they are not sure how deep into the area they need to go to get items. Consistency, but still a bit different every time you go looking for something.

Overall, I have enjoyed my experience so far and I am looking forward to playing more as the game gets updated (which apparently it has already, wow!)

-MisterPenguino
https://youtu.be/mM-WHyh0b4E