As someone who loves watching people play resource management games but can find them a little overwhelming to play, I’ve had my eye on Fabledom for a while. The cozy aesthetic and fantasy setting immediately hooked me, but sadly, Fabledom and I do not get along – on the Switch, at least.
Fabledom is a cozy, fantasy city builder game from Grenaa Games and Dear Villagers that combines aspects of 4X gameplay with classic city construction and resource management, all in a laid-back fashion to make it ideal for first-time architects. The game was in early access on PC for a while and has finally made the jump to console, but based on my time with it, it’s clear the Switch port could have done with some more time in the oven.
Firstly, the appeal of playing a city builder on Switch is its portability, so you should be able to read prompts on the screen comfortably. Fabledom has no settings for UI scaling – despite multiple players mentioning it numerous times in early access – and all of the text is tiny. This immediately makes playing super frustrating, especially as you need to read the tutorial to understand what’s going on.
Then there’s the control scheme. I’m used to Switch games favoring the joysticks over the arrow keys in most situations, so when I started playing Fabledom and realized that all the joysticks control is the camera, I was confused. Selecting any menu or function takes far too many clicks using the arrow keys, so much so that it’s tiring and makes me want to stop playing.
On the surface, Fabledom has a lot of good ideas, but when you compare it to other games in the genre, like Cities: Skylines or even Manor Lords, a PC city builder set in medieval Europe made by a solo developer, it’s not doing anything new. Some mechanics even make less sense in Fabledom than in other games, like charging for dirt roads (which are free in Manor Lords) or requiring a laborer’s hut for your idle villagers to build things. Pair this with the tiny starting area, frame drops with every autosave, and rather forced romance mechanics, and you get a less-than-appealing gaming experience.
I have a feeling that Fabledom is slightly more enjoyable on the PC and that a lot of my complaints are purely due to the platform. Even so, it’s not the accessible, cozy city building experience that I expected. Even my partner, who plays the genre much more than I do, couldn’t get to grips with it, but who knows, maybe you’ll find some joy in it!
While you’re here, you should definitely check out our guide to the best cozy games and fantasy games on the Nintendo Switch and mobile. Alternatively, our guide to the best Nintendo Switch accessories will make your portable gaming life infinitely more stylish.