Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, a Market-Based Title, with the original being Tensui no Sakuna-hime (天穂のサクナヒメ), meaning "Heavenly Ears of Sakuna-hime", given the eventual Title Drop, is a side-scrolling action-platformer developed by Japanese independent game studio Edelweiss, and published by Marvelous in Japan and Europe and XSEED Games in North America. The game has deep crafting and rice cultivation in a tale about finding one's place in the world. Its scheduled release date was on November 10, 2020 for PC via Steam, and November 20, 2020 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
Spoiled harvest goddess Sakuna finds herself banished from her opulent celestial home to an island overrun with demons. In its untamed wilderness, she must rediscover her birthright as the daughter of a warrior god and harvest goddess by weathering the elements, fighting monsters, and cultivating rice, the source of her power. By her side in this foreboding place is her guardian Tama and a group of outcast humans. Together, these unlikely companions must join hands to tame both the soil and the demons of Hinoe Island.
An anime adaptation animated by P. A. Works is set to be released in 2024.
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin provides examples of:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: Sakuna's level maxes out at 99, but the game can quite easily be beaten when her level is in the low 40s.
- Alcohol Hic: When Sakuna is drunk in the prologue, she ends a sentence with a *hic*.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Tama warns that demons are innately untrustworthy; they cannot feel gratitude or any form of goodwill, as they are pure manifestations of evil born from the chaos in the Lowly Realm. This comes into play when the humans take pity on a wounded rabbit demon, which repays their kindness by guiding its fellow monsters to the farm to raze it.
- However, it's possible that demons can be purified and reborn. The demon that betrays Sakuna is later transformed into a normal rabbit when she offers it forgiveness and a parting meal.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Sakuna's parents, Toyohana and Takeribi. Although they are widely revered in the Lofty Realm, they are not present during the story and are only referenced in the past tense. It is unclear whether they are dead or have vanished somehow. When Sakuna faces off against the Final Boss, Omizuchi reveals he devoured them both. Defeating him frees their spirits for a final heart-to-heart.
- Amphibian at Large: A giant frog demon is the boss of the forest region.
- Artificial Stupidity: Enemies make absolutely no effort to avoid dangerous terrain such as lava or spike traps - they will march blindly toward Sakuna regardless of what's in the way, which players can easily exploit.
- Bears Are Bad News: Bear demons start appearing late in the game. They're huge, hit like trucks, and can parry your attacks. Dealing with them usually requires debuffing them with your raiment, using smaller enemies for crash combos against them, or swinging around to attack their vulnerable backs.
- Become a Real Boy: A late-game sidequest caused by one of Sakuna's blunders reveals that Yui is a crane who wished to become human, and was granted her desire by a pair of bizarre gods from another land. She regains her human form by the end of the quest, but at an unknown price.
- Bilingual Bonus: Myrthe is from a fictional European country, but speaks Poirot Speak Dutch. All words she uses are the correct terminology for their English/Japanese counterparts. And sometimes she scolds or apologizes or just drops a few words without context. Like when naming the rice Sakuna farms, she suggests "Sakuna Ontembaar" which means Sakuna Untamed. And finally, the noun "Sakuna" itself means "calamity/ruin" in Filipino, which doubles as a Stealth Pun.
- Bigger on the Inside: The first time Sakuna enters the Training Cave at home base, she remarks that it looks notably larger than the appearance led her to believe. Tama explains that her father made it himself, and used an enchantment that shrank the size of all who entered so he'd have more room to hone his skills.
- Cannibalism Superpower: According to
Word of God, Omizuchi's extra heads are the result of him consuming Sakuna's parents and gaining their powers: the earth head came from Toyohana, while the fire head came from Takeribi. - The Catfish: An enormous catfish demon serves as the boss of the river region, leaping out of the water to attack Sakuna.
- Chekhov's Volcano: Played with. The volcano is first mentioned as safe to ignore because there aren't any demons there. Why there are no demons there ends up becoming important, but despite fighting a boss in the heart of the volcano, there is no eruption. After confronting the next boss (who has a nice view of the volcano in the distance), however, the volcano finally erupts and pollutes the hamlet, resulting in the loss of Sakuna's powers.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: Myrthe worships a foreign God known as Formos, who seems to be the setting's equivalent of the Christian God.
- Declaration of Protection: Sakuna's father helped protect Ashigumo's tribe living on Hinoe Island from the more vile demons. In return, Ashigumo still protects the house Sakuna's parents made, and Sakuna herself when she arrives.
- Dem Bones: Skeletal warriors, the remnants of the Ashigumo tribe, make up many of the enemies of the volcano region.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- The actual farming is surprisingly complex, being a Rice Farming simulator, essentially. Get good at it, however, and Sakuna can gain lots of stat boosts from high quality rice.
- On the combat side, the game has a parry system akin to Street Fighter III where players parry by tapping the stick in the direction of an incoming attack at just the right moment. It's as tricky (quite) and as effective (very) as can be expected.note
- Evil-Detecting Dog: The dog that gets found has keen enough senses that it can detect demons before they're close enough to be a threat, which allows the humans that were banished to Hinoe Island with Sakuna to leave the protection of the farm and go foraging in the wild as long as it accompanies them. A few more dogs later join, allowing more of the group to be sent out.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: The Pig Men Creeps are huge, portly demons that carry giant clubs or shields. They're also the second enemy in the game and go down quite easily.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The game takes place in a fantasy Japan analog named Yanato. Other countries are mentioned — Myrthe is from the Netherlands analogue "Ventania", and mentions a China analogue called "Ouka" and an India analogue called "Nadith" when recalling her travels.
- Feathered Fiend: The sparrow demons are aggressive and love to gang up on Sakuna when they see her, while the pheasant demons are difficult with their dive-bombing, arrow-like feathers, and forward-spin attacks with their tails.
- Flying Seafood Special: In the river areas, flying fish demons are a constant threat.
- Formal Characters Use Keigo: Sakuna, Tama, Kokorowa, Tauemon, and Kamuhitsuki's Japanese lines are spoken quite formally. Sakuna and Kokorowa are part of Kamuhitsuki's court (although Sakuna does still speak in a rude manner despite using polite forms of address), Tama's the Old Retainer who serves Sakuna, and Tauemon's the son of a samurai.
- Full-Boar Action: Boar demons show up in the forest and mountain regions. Unlike most demons, they're quadrupeds rather than bipeds and attack with their tusks.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- According to mythology, only the purest of white rice is tributed to the gods. Sakuna gains the best permanent stat boosts from fully-hulled white rice.
- The game has UI elements that make the farming easier, but not right away - they get unlocked over time. Presumably, this represents Sakuna herself getting better at rice farming.
- When a cutscene depicts any of the human cast talking or working at the farm, those characters will be automatically called back from any gathering spot that you've sent them to that day.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- After a critical point in the plot, the farmstead is destroyed, the land laid to waste, and everything that Sakuna and the Children of Men worked for is gone. Nonetheless, Sakuna retains all her supplies, inventory, and preserved foodstuffs from before this event.
- The Skeletal Spectres are supposedly enemies of both humans and demons, carrying rancorous hatred within them for a war that wiped them out. When they first appear they're in a cave with slain demons strewn about, but later on in the game they appear alongside Creeps as just another enemy.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: The gods of the Lofty Realm give praise to still-higher gods, and they all perform favours that benefit the Children of Men (human beings) in the Lowly Realm. In turn, gratitude from the Lowly Realm fuels them with praise. Sakuna starts the game off rather weak because she's banished to the Isle of Demons, but the more she works at the harvest and protects her human companions, the stronger she becomes, and the more powerful demons she can vanquish.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Striking an enemy hard enough will send it flying, causing significant crash damage to any other enemies in its path. Sakuna can also use her Raiment to grab one and fling them around depending on the Raiment skills equipped.
- Hair-Raising Hare: The rabbit demons are evil-looking, bipedal rabbits that fight with swords, bows, or grenades. While individually somewhat weak, they're quite dangerous in groups.
- In-Universe Game Clock:
- The game functions on a day-night clock. Sakuna does not get tired and can move during both day and night (her abilities are instead limited by food) and the player can speed up the clock by resting. Monsters are stronger during the night but also drop rare items for equipment. The humans on the island can only be dispatched as gatherers during the day; during the night, all except for Myrthe are asleep, and Sakuna cannot ask Tauemon for rice-planting advice or commission Yui or Kinta for new equipment.
- Rice farming is based around four three-"day" seasons, with the crop being planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer or early autumn. Some items are also seasonal - ice appears only in winter, and matsutake mushrooms only in autumn.
- Kappa: A lone kappa shows up to ask Sakuna for help against a demon that's threatening its tribe. Once Sakuna defeats the giant catfish demon, the entire kappa tribe swears allegiance to her and begins working additional rice fields to increase the harvest.
- Lethal Joke Item: Normally, the Bamboo Broom is a pathetic two-hand weapon with a base damage of one. But attach the "Broomstick Awakening" Spirit Bough to it and it will deal damage scaled to your Magic stat, quickly turning it into one of the more powerful Magic damage weapons.
- Lethal Lava Land: Go deep enough into the volcano and you'll encounter pools and columns of lava. These will damage Sakuna if she steps in them, although she can mitigate it through clothing and food bonuses.
- Mystical Jade: Besides the broom that can be found in the storehouse, weapons forged from jade are the only ones that can deal Magic-type damage by default, and are unlocked around the time Sakuna discovers the magic-focused water region.
- Nice Day, Deadly Night: Although demons can be encountered during both day and night, they get much more powerful when darkness falls.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: None of the characters age significantly, despite living on the island for years. Justified due to it being in the Lofty Realm, although the ending mentions that Yui grows into a goddess of the loom, so it could be that they age a lot more slowly in the Lofty Realm compared to the Lowly Realm.
- Our Gods Are Different: Myrthe is a Western missionary who believes in a monotheistic religion similar to Christianity. To her, there's one capital-G god, and the "gods" of Yanatonote are more akin to "angels".
- Pet the Dog:
- Sakuna, for all that she's an entitled Spoiled Brat most of the time, does have her moments when she shows genuine gratitude and concern for the humans she's forced to live with.
- In a more literal example, Sakuna can pet the dogs and cats that come to live at the Mountain Pass.
- Physical God: Several characters, in fact:
- Sakuna, herself, is the daughter of a War God and an Agriculture Goddess.
- Lady Kamuhitsuki is the Top God of the Lofty Realm.
- All five of the human cast begin to take on aspects of godhood due to their time with Sakuna in the Lofty Realm. Yui eventually grows into a goddess of the loom, while Tauemon becomes a harvest god like Sakuna.
- Physical Heaven: Sakuna and her kind live in the Lofty Realm, connected to the Lowly Realm of mortals with a bridge that only appears intermittently so that tributes can be delivered.
- Pig Man: The bipedal pig demons. They're much larger than Sakuna and wield either stone hammers or massive wooden shields. They're resistant to being staggered or juggled by Sakuna's attacks unless parried.
- The Power of Hate: The boss of the volcano region is a malevolent amalgamation of the Ashigumo tribes' remains, who resent their tribe's fate. The boss fight is introduced with it hissing "Hate...".
- Practical Currency: Once your rice harvest starts getting large enough, you can trade rice to the capital in exchange for different items that can't be acquired on Hinoe Island, like silk and sugar.
- Protagonist Title: Sakuna herself is the title character.
- Protection Mission: When Sakuna (and Kokorowa) approach Lady Kamuhitsuki for the Orb of Transformation to help restore the ash-laden fields hampering the former's powers, the latter tasks her with protecting a branch of the Tree of Creation which would bear the Orb. Sakuna has to endure 4 waves of huge aphids (around her size) that will approach and feed on the branch. The yellow bugs toddle towards the branch, the red ones move faster and are harder to stagger, and the blue ones move away before lobbing projectiles from afar, forcing Sakuna to move to them to wipe them out. It can be played again as a Mini-Game for prizes.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: For accidentally blowing up the divine garner containing rice that was meant to be a tribute to Kamuhitsuki, Sakuna is tasked with colonizing Hinoe Island, where her parents met and fought against demons. As for the humans that she was trying to repel, they're sentenced to serve as Sakuna's workers on replacing the rice that was destroyed, since the celestial bridge has already vanished and they can't be sent home until it reappears.
- Rescue Romance: Yui has a crush on Kinta because he saved her sometime in the past... not that he remembers.
- Scarf of Asskicking: More like Veil of Asskicking, but Sakuna has her Divine Raiment. More so than other examples, because it's used as a Grappling-Hook Pistol that can help close the gap to enemies.
- Sequel Hook: A few plot threads raised in the main game are never explored further.
- The mysterious Twin Goddesses, strange beings that look like UFOs. They are directly related to two big plot threads: they created the Divine Raiment that belonged to Toyohana and now Sakuna, and were the ones who answered Yui's wish to become a human from her original crane form. The Twin Goddesses are not developed further despite Sakuna wanting to know more about them.
- Once Kinta proves that Yui has successfully bonded with other humans, the Twin Goddesses allow her to make a new bargain to regain her human form. But we never find out the price she paid for this second chance.
- Later on Sakuna and Kokorowa begin suspecting that some malevolent schemer might exist in the Lofty Realm, as both goddesses noticed that the dispute between them over the tainted rice had to be someone else's hand, not the demons they had originally thought. Sakuna and Kokorowa also noticed how the demons and Ishimaru were well equipped with armor and weapons far beyond their understanding - both came to similar conclusions that not even Ishimaru’s interference could have advanced the demons that much. Omizuchi's awakening was the result of their actions and not the planner - the demon dragon had only powered up Ishimaru.
- Kokorowa apparently gets into a conflict with another divine inventor, only teased that it "is a tale for another time."
- Omizuchi states after you defeat him that he will eventually be reborn once there is enough hatred and suffering in the Lower Realm, though he also states that thanks to Sakuna's hard work the Lower Realm is entering a new era of peace and prosperity so it will take a long time before this happens.
- Shown Their Work:
- Praise has been given as to the accuracy of the farming, even down to the little details, like the water level being best at ankle-height or the remedies when the rice plants become sick.
- Once you grow a high yield of rice, the extra rice can be used to trade for items from the capital that can't be found on Hinoe. Before Japan used coin-based currency, rice was a form of money, where a daimyo's worth was how many koku
of rice their lands could produce.
- Spin Attack: Sakuna gets two special abilities that let her spin. Furious Furrow is an uninterruptible, two-handed forward spin that strikes repeatedly. Wild Top causes Sakuna to perform a spinning kick that sends enemies flying.
- Stealth Sequel: Sakuna may be part of the Fairy Bloom series, as Lady Kamuhitsuki is secretly revealed (by a mere item description) to be Freesia from Fairy Bloom Freesia all grown up and ascended to godhood. Adding to this implication is the fact that the minigame that gives the item, "Sakuna the Efflorescent," involves protecting a giant plant from waves of invaders (much as Fairy Bloom involved a fairy protecting a flower from invaders). In addition, Myrthe explicitly mentions meeting King Listine "and a beautiful fairy" during her travels in a dinner cutscene.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The game begins with Sakuna attempting to chase off the humans that has broken into the Lofty Realm, only for her attack to knock a torch into barrels of ceremonial oils inside the divine garner, blowing up the entire tribute. Kokorowa later makes the same mistake.
- Technicolor Toxin: The clouds of poison in the Noxious Dale are colored purple.
- Tell Me About My Father: Sakuna asks Tama about how her parents met, a long tale that he delivers over several dinner conversations.
- That's No Moon: At the end of the forest region, Sakuna marvels at some flowering camellia trees. Then they move, revealing them to be growing on the forest's master, a giant frog demon.
- Title Drop: By the goddess herself when landing the final blow on Omizuchi.Sakuna: My rice is your ruin!
- The original title, 天穂のサクナヒメ (Tensui no Sakuna-hime), refers to the rice brand that Sakuna eventually sells at the capital.
- Video Game Delegation Penalty: If you delegate your allies to help you with rice farming process (and only with rice farming, sending them for resources is perfectly okay). You stats and rewards will be much lower than if you do it yourself.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After it's revealed that Ashigumo was Dead All Along and killed Ishimaru, he only appears in minor scenes. The shocking situation is never followed up on, no one wonders about his sudden disappearance, and he's the only named island character who does not appear at the end to get a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After the credits, the game gives one of these for each of the main characters.
- World Tree: Called the Tree of Creation, of which Kamuhitsuki is apparently a manifestation/representation, and from which most other gods are descended.
