Because farming games on Android tend to take a ton of your time on a daily basis, it is highly advisable that you only take one game and stick to it. And please, for the love of God, don’t install all three of the apps in this Hay Day vs FarmVille 2 vs Fairy Farm comparison. I’ll admit, I was once caught harvesting lavender flowers in class and was thrown out. Had to bribe an assistant just to sit in the exams that year. My personal failures aside, this article truly aims to find the best farming app there is. We have already listed the best apps in the business in a previous article but now we are taking the standard JOA magnifying glass and seeking out the best of the best. Hay Day vs FarmVille 2 vs Fairy Farm is not about 3 farm games pitting against each other, it’s more about your education and career. Note: The apps in the article Hay Day vs FarmVille 2 vs Fairy Farm were tested on a Samsung Galaxy Note III smartphone. All of the apps require an active internet connection to work. This means, no internet = no farming. There were no problems faced during testing.
Our Ratings:
Hay Day: 4.8 out of 5 FarmVille 2: 4.6 out of 5 Fairy Farm: 4.5 out of 5
Google Play Ratings and Links:
Hay Day: 4.4 out of 5
FarmVille 2: 4.2 out of 5
Fairy Farm: 4.3 out of 5
The Good
If you have time to kill, all three of the apps will do a remarkable job. You can farm crops while waiting for coffee, plant trees waiting for the class to start and even sell some products at the doctor’s waiting room. The gameplay is of a very loose nature, there is no pressure in making a move at all. Want to play for 20 minutes? You can do so with these games. Want to play for 3 minutes? Yes this is even possible. You usually don’t get penalized for missing a button hit, like in the best arcade games for Android. The leisurely nature of the games makes them a stress-less yet rewarding experience.
The Bad
The countdown timers. Without a doubt, the countdown timers are sometimes insane. Want to get that barn in the higher level? It will take a full day. I’m not talking about an in-game day which usually lasts for around 20 minutes in real life. I’m talking about the real world one day, that’s like 24 hours if I’m not mistaken. This is a long wait to essentially get a bigger barn and has no place in a game. I’m fine with 2-5 minute timers which, although not amazing, can still be tolerated by a ton of crafty players. However, there is no way you can continue playing the game if everything is on a countdown. I understand that the timers are what make the developers rich but can they please be reasonable?
The Bottom Line
There is no actual “game” in Hay Day vs FarmVille 2 vs Fairy Farm comparison. If you are looking to drive a tractor you will have better luck in the best simulation games for Android. If you want to milk some cows in a fully realized 3D environment for some reason? You are out of luck sir. The gameplay here involves looking at the screen and tapping everything. So, if you like this carefree gameplay style, you will feel right at home with any of these great games. However, if you were thinking about starting a chicken fighting ring, well you might as well start it in real life because you won’t be finding it here.
Starting A Farm –Hay Day
The first impression stays with you for a very long time and Hay Day really knows how to make one. While FarmVille 2 comes extremely close to that level, Hay Day really snags the feel of starting a new farm. I really like the small cut scene explaining why you are starting out a new farm. It will make you feel more involved in the process and the overall experience. It is a nice touch to include which really doesn’t affect the game at all but does provide something heartwarming.
The tutorial featured on Hay Day is amazing as well. I went through the tropes fairly quickly and was already farming the hell out in about 10 minutes or so. Farmville also featured a good tutorial but there was a lot of text going about. Don’t get me wrong, I do love to read walls of text if I’m playing one of the best RPG games on Android but not so much on a farming game. Fairy Farm fails miserably in the tutorial section and I would rate it, not only last on this comparison but also, bad overall.
Graphics – FarmVille 2
While all three games in this comparison have fairly nice graphics, FarmVille 2 stands out from the rest. I went in expecting another 2D centric farming game, however; FarmVille 2 surprised me with cute 3D ones. I’m not going to say that the graphics are as great as best 3D games for Android but they are of high quality. The way the camera pans around the screen makes this particular game stand out from the other two. One another thing I noticed about Farmville 2 is the animations, the 3D goats roaming around and looking actually funny makes this game my personal favorite when it comes to graphics.
Hay Day has crisp 2D graphics that are not remarkable but are still of high quality. If I were judging Hay Day as a standalone game, I would have given it full marks for featuring high-resolution assets on the game. Because this is a comparison between three market leaders, I would have to give the award to FarmVille 2. Fairy Farm once again disappoints with its odd low-resolution textures and sprites. This art style is good but the game has blurry textures that look way out of date on modern devices.
Gameplay – Tie
All of the games feature essentially the same gameplay which makes it hard to select any one of them. You will be planting stuff, harvesting it and planting some other stuff. All three titles allow you to gain experience and level up your character. You will also be able to unlock additional stuff and grow your farm as you move forward. The games have a great reward system which makes them highly addictive. So in terms of gameplay, I would have to say that the games are nearly identical.
Controls – Hay Day
The controls featured in Hay Day are remarkable. I played FarmVille back when it was a big deal on Facebook and I had the general idea of how well the game works. However, I have always used a mouse to play the game before and had no idea how good the controls will translate to a touch screen interface. Hay Day designed the controls for touch screens first and it shows. Gone are the days of tapping on each crop square every time you wanted to interact with it. The game uses a mixture of taps and drags to make the experience not only fast but enjoyable. FarmVille 2 also follows the same control design and delivers on all aspects.
Fairy Farm, however, is still stuck in the past. Here you will find no innovation in controls. I would go as far as to say that this game will be better played with a mouse attached to your device. That’s right, Fairy Farm has a clunky touch interface that makes everything a chore.
Setting – Fairy Farm
I’ll be honest here, I like Fairies and their magical shenanigans. This is exactly why the setting for Fairy Farm is different and unique in my books. The other two games are grounded in reality and if we needed reality, we would open a real farm. Fairy Farm provides you with some epic items that are clearly not available in other games. Also, if you have a young fairy of your own, I’m pretty sure that she would also like to play this game.
Conclusion
It’s hard to select a favorite in this comparison. In some ways, all three games are so alike while in others, drastically different. Hopefully this comparison will help you in narrowing down the game you want to play yourself. Personally, I’m leaning towards Hay Day just because it looks like a well-polished game to me. If you have any questions or problems, feel free to ask in the comments below. While I’m not that deep in the games myself, I do have some friends who are madly in love with them. Feature Image Credits
