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Hi! The short answer: if you really enjoyed Stardew Valley, Fields of Mistria is absolutely for you.

The full answer: It controls/plays like Stardew Valley and has an identical gameplay loop. You have your own farm that you can customize/expand/decorate as you wish. You have the overworld map where you can run around and search for items to forage, go fishing and catch bugs. You have the mines which are full of ore and monsters (and in FoM, central to the main story progression). For collection quests, you contribute to a museum in the place of those bundles in the community center in SDV. You have to manage your time/hours in the day and your energy.

A few things unique to Mistria: the town has a "reputation" rank that levels up as you do certain things and some things are gated behind town rank progression. You will gain some rank incidentally but you pretty much have to pay attention to the daily quests on the quest board in town, in SDV these quests felt completely optional. You have a magic meter and can cast some spells. You can jump.

Overall, Fields of Mistria has less complexity and is more forgiving. If you enjoy all of the different "farming" things you can do in SDV, FoM has less of that. If you wanted the dungeons to be harder/more threatening (like the desert one in SDV) it might be too easy.

Finally, as I've alluded to, FoM has a central plot which most of the people in town are involved in/contribute to one way or another. SDV doesn't really have this beyond "JojaMart vs. the town".

So, I went into my playthrough thinking I'd end up marrying March. Always had a weakness for characters that are kind of a cunt at first, but revealed to be privately sensitive and genuine, only showing their true selves to the few they trust. The initial resistance makes the later interactions feel real and earned. (Besides, his theme music is the best track in the game and it's not even close.)

It's odd that I'm leaning more toward Balor and Eiland now. Feels kinda bad, since I took March to the Shooting Star Festival and now I'm going to switch teams, lol. So much for the "binding destinies together" thing.

Initiated romance route with Balor on a lark and ended up liking him more than expected. We haven't seen the full extent of the character's stories yet, but I enjoy the implication that he's got a questionable past and NPC Studio's restraint on spelling out the particulars. Leaves room for the player to speculate and fill in the details on their own.

I'm kind of at a loss about why I'm so attached to Eiland. Objectively, he's bland compared to the game's other marriage candidates (a master blacksmith tsundere, a charismatic ex-criminal merchant, a hot animal lover beefcake DILF, a literal dragon). Subjectively... I think he's the closest to the type of person I like in real life, an approachable guy who is learned/highly educated yet somehow moé. He also just has a killer character design, whoever did all his outfits deserves a raise.