Sunnyside has so much potential but it really does fall short. I had this game on my wish-list for a long time and one of my friends surprised me with it. I'm going to add everything I can in this review (even though i never write big reviews) based on what I've played. I completed the cave levels and sparky's story and my farm is mostly complete.

I'm going to start off with the bugs, because there is plenty of them. I usually wouldn't care if this game was in Early Access, but it isn't. Luckily the devs are actively responding and addressing problems in their discord which gives me hope, but for a game that is FULLY RELEASED, it shouldn't have this many bugs. Here are a few off the top of my head that i ran into
-Waypoints didn't show up on the map unless i closed and reopened it 10 times
-The insects are IMPOSSIBLE to find. This is extremely infuriating considering you HAVE to picture one for a quest.
I literally had my critter cam out and fully zoomed in for hours around areas suggested by reddit and youtube, and after AGES my critter cam highlighted something INVISIBLE on a tree so i captured it and to my surprise it was a butterfly. This genuinely made me tweak and go into a psychosis.
-The drone/building is so cool, but needs polishing. A lot of the time i couldn't build fences connected to each other because it would bug out and just lag like crazy. Also when using the light tool i found it kept it on for the rest of the day and every time I opened my phone there was a BIG flash on my cursor, making it hard to navigate.
-When switching between tools like the axe and the machete, instead of keeping the tool out, I had to KEEP equipping it. As I was chopping down grass or bamboo, for some reason after doing it for a short while it would make me equip the tool again. This was also frustrating.
-My dog kept disappearing and actually contributes nothing to the farm, because i still had a bunch of foxes. The bed also has a bug where it insists it's ''unsheltered'' when it was literally in my home.
-After upgrading in the skill tree my crops would die almost immediately, meaning I couldn't harvest and make a profit
-Caves.... This section of the game is something that's for sure. I love the idea and the battles are really cool but omg... the LAG in the caves is unbearable, and the battles go about 1 frame per year it's really irritating because this was something I was interested in when I first saw this game. The environment was very lackluster as well. just a whole nothingburger if I'm honest. The story / quest you have to spend the majority in the caves for is a bit weird aswell, but i really did love kitsunes design.
-Quests not activating or loading when going to the right spot
-The game overall runs really poorly, after turning off the auto load levels thing in the settings I did see a major improvement which is good, but i still ran into really bad lag problems. especially in the caves.
These are only a few things I could think of just coming off the game.
The Game
I'm gonna give my opinion on some of the features and main parts of the game.
1. Romance
I really love the persona style social interaction, but it's so bare bones. most of the hangouts are you and the npc just sitting or standing there lifelessly, and there is little to no dialogue. Although there is plenty of places to go with your friend or partner, there's no point because it's just boring. As many other reviews state, there is NO marriage. I did look into this further and try to find anything about whether they were adding it or not, but it's all very vague, I've seen that they said MAYBE and explaining it takes time and the game wasn't built for it, then other times saying no (in the description).. there has been polls but I haven't seen anything come of it? One of the things in the steam store description states 'Form bonds, attend events, build a life, and maybe even find someone special to share your days with.' When you word it like 'Share your days with' and 'build a life', people are obviously going to assume you can marry someone and have kids with them. I think this is a big part of a game that advertises life simulation. It really is disappointing and misleading. I wouldn't even call the 'romance' a partnership, because it's just endless dates and repeating the same stuff. It's repetitive and you really get nothing for it in the long run like MARRIAGE or KIDS. Gift giving is also an option and it does help you get a higher relationship with said NPC.
2. Character Customization
The game advertises 'creative freedom and self-expression' but there is soooo much lacking. I can't even wear MAKEUP? the lips are almost completely merged into the face and it just looks awful. 90% of the hair options are bad, and there is only a few skin tones you can pick, one of them being the colour of michael jacksons ghost. When going to the Clothing store for the first time, you're met with a nice variety of new clothes which was cool! you can't equip them IN the store, you need to have crafted a wardrobe to be able to change your clothes which isn't explained in the game so to wear your new drip you have to travel from the city all the way back to your farm. I assumed from here that if I went to the salon there might be more hair options or even makeup, but no.. it's the same. ALSO, there is only one body type in the game and that's skinny. I'm not sure why this is because the woman who runs the salon has a completely different body type. Why can't my character? Also, why cant I have Kat's hair?! I did like the way they handled gender, you have a slider which is ultra feminine to ultra masculine. I have never seen that before and I liked that.
3. Farming / Crafting
SunnySide emphasizes that it's not a game with a crowded hotbar filled with tools, but your inventory is a hot mess most of the time. Even early on in the game clearing out your farm stuff accumulates FAST. The different bags for different items is a great way to tackle this, but I think the stack sizes are far too low. When placing blueprints there is an option to allow you to add stuff from your inventory to deposit, but it doesn't take it from any of the storage boxes on your farm, at least it didn't for me if this was supposed to be a feature.. I don't see why it wouldn't be considering you need a lot of items to build houses and just anything really. It's also really tedious to have to go back and forth to the blacksmith or woodworker to get items built and then having to wait a DAY. I did unlock the crafting skill tree thing that makes it so you can craft a lot of those items on your own, but not all. If you're able to purchase seeds online, why can i not buy other things like those online from the shopkeepers as well as ordering services online and shipping the required materials off? As for farming, I do enjoy this aspect of the game. I loved decorating my farm and the hose is a cool feature and really fun. I did mention in bugs that a lot of the time my crops would wither the day after i planted them so later on in my play through I didn't get to see many crops. Ranching is fun too, the animals are cute and i loved taking care of them. It's a good thing farming is one of this games main selling points because it is really good. I know you can have more than one farm, I'm just not sure how good that feels considering the inventory limitations and travelling is a chore. I think there should also be the option for fast travel spots maybe? The town feels a tad lifeless too unless the Farmers Market is on.
Conclusion
This game really has the potential to be amazing but it just isn't at the moment. I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy it full price with the current state it's in. I'm sure the reason it was released fully wasn't up to the devs, but it really is not a full game. I will keep an eye on patch updates and play here and there but i really wish the developers good luck and i have hope for this game <3

6 patches later I can actually recommend this game, I'm hoping we get a little more story content in updates and maybe dlcs, but the actual farming and building is really fun

though it doesn't run very well at times, even on a decent computer

It hurts my heart to have to give this a negative review - but if I'm going to be 100% honest here, this game needs to cook for way longer. Like other folks have said, this should be listed as an early access game. There are bugs, sure, but those aside, the game itself feels unpolished, unfinished, and verrrryyy clunky to play.

Mechanically, alot of the systems in this game are tedious and there needs to be some heavy duty quality of life improvements before I can safely recommend this to anyone. It's kind of a pain harvesting trees all day, only to have to bring those to a lumberyard (who isn't open all the time, and some days totally closed) and have to, not only pay to have these materials refined, but also remember which of the many different types of refined materials i need to turn them into. And then I need to wait a full in game day to get them. And during all of this, I am resorting to exploiting the ''hang out'' feature with people to fast travel around because there is SO much running (or biking) back and forth.

I want to love this game. I really do. You can tell it pulls some great influence from the Persona games, in particular, when it comes to art style, music choice, battle animations, loading screens.. But after a whole real life weekend of trying to get used to the rather rough building mechanics... (fence building was pretty awful. My whole garden was crooked), I just can't see myself playing it anymore until a significant amount of updates is done to the game. The decor available to me is really lacking and the amount of time, resources, and energy I'd need to use in order to have a fully furnished home .. just doesn't feel rewarding enough. It all feels a bit bland.

I liked the animals (The surprise I had when I first caught a thief in my garden!). I liked the music. I liked the phone implementation and how you had a decent sized inventory from the start. I liked the characters. I was eager to learn more about them. Maybe one day I'll return back to my pitiful little farm. I hope so. Devs, if you read this, please know that I do find your game immensely charming, and I can tell that tons of love went into it. But it still needs alot of work.