So. Harvest Moon. This is one of those games I'd heard about (sometimes constantly) and that all my friends were playing, but I had never gotten around to actually trying...while still keeping the faint thought in the back of my mind that I was probably going to do it, someday. Possibly. Maybe. Eh.
Nothing about it really struck me as 'fun'. It's a top-down...farm simulation? Seriously? Yes. You plant crops, tend your cows and chickens and assorted thingies, clear rocks, chop wood, fish, do a bit of exploring....you also woo chicks, marry them, and have babies that you can just ignore totally. You have to keep a good relationship both with your wife and with your cows. (I am not going to go there, no way no how. Insert your own jokes, thank you very much.) It's like...Farmville, old-school, with less friend-bothering and begging for your money. And it's incredibly, oddly, hypnotic. Despite it's many (many, many) flaws, something about this game just works. It sucks you in.
Here are the three things I disliked the most about this game.:
1) One of the most annoying things about this game is the day/evening/night cycle. The day is duecedly short, and you're literally scrambling to get all your crops harvested, your animals milked, collect the eggs, do any fishing or collecting you want to do, shop, and talk to the girls you're trying to get to marry you before the sun goes down. Anything you don't crate for shipping by the end of the day goes bad. You can't put anything in there overnight because it rots. (Except crops in the ground, which is nice-they can sit until the seasons change). The shops close at night, of course. (Along with holidays, Sundays, and every rainstorm. Why rainstorm, you ask? I HAVE NO IDEA. It drove me nuts.)
Then the evening shift happens, for about three minutes (kind of like a warning signal.) And then it's night...and time just stops. You have all the time in the world at that point to do your 'chores'-watering, feeding the animals, petting your cows, digging holes, planting new crops, ect. You could spend two hours in the night-shift before going to bed to officially end the day. Which is nice, because there's a lot to do, and it's good to have the time to do it...
2) ...except you only have so much stamina to do these things. How much? Who knows. The walk-through I was using said you start with 100...but unless you feel like sitting there and counting tool strokes, you kind of just have to guess. Your little dude gives you clues when he hits certain levels (wipes his brow, sits down for a moment). And you can refill your stamina by eating or jumping into a hot springs up in the mountains. Which is nice, but time-consuming. You can also randomly find these little cherry-apple things that boost your stamina by 10. I just wish they'd given us some kind of indicator, like a bar or a number or anything.
3) And last but not least, your wife. Seriously, why did they bother with this anyway? Once you've wooed one of four choices (by giving her presents and talking to her over and over and over), you can ask her to marry you (on a particular day of the week). If she says yes, you get married and you have a little wifey. And what is wifey good for? Well, she feeds you once a day. Nice. And if you're really, really nice to her, she'll eventually pop out a kid or two. And...
That's it. You can pretty much ignore her, as long as you fling presents (and yes, I mean fling-you stand back and throw things at her. Nice huh?) at her. You never have to do anything she asks you to do, you never have to talk to her, and you never have to touch her. Same goes for any kids you might have-they might as well not exist. They don't grow up and help you or anything, they just hit the toddler stage and freeze there. Very annoying.
Ok, numbers:
Graphics: 7
Like most Super Nintendo games, the graphics are clean and simple, yet colorful and interesting. This game is a bit blurrier than I'm used to-that might be the port, rather than the game, though. The characters lack a lot of animation, but the scenery is very nice and the different stages of plants and grass look really clear.
Sound: 6
During the day, you're treated to a fairly standard set of computer-synthesized musical bleck; electronic, tinny and repetitive. But at night...oh, at night, blessed silence. The music goes away with the sun, and since you spend most of your time at night doing your chores, it's a pleasant change.
Addictiveness: 8
Ok. Despite everything i said up in the first part about it being annoying, repetitive, slow and sometimes raondom...I found myself playing it all...day....long. I have no idea what it was about this game that kept me going. It's like, once you get things on a roll, you just can't stop. You've put so much time and effort into this stupid game that you can't seem to put the controller down. It hooks you and, in your preoccupation, you don't even realize how much time has actually gone by. Your brain is too busy ticking off the chores you need to do, and the crops that are ready, that will be ready, and that you need to plant..oh, the grass don't forget to cut the grass...It's crazy, but it's true. You get into this game. And I still don't know why.
That being said, however, I feel obligated to admit that I'm not sure I'm going to even play it again, now that I've managed to tear myself away from it. I can see that it could be one of the world's biggest time-drainers. Kind of like Farmville without the friends.
Story: 3
Your uncle and aunt take off, leaving you with this decrepit excuse for an empty, barren ranch. Have fun, we'll see you soon! And that's pretty much all the background you need. Which is a good thing, because that's pretty much all you'll get. The story line is so unimportant that I accidentally skipped it the first time through, learned it by accident from a random NPC, and didn't care.
Depth: 7
It's true that this game has no story and no real 'depth', but it is long and there are different ending, apparantly, depending on certain factors and decisions you make throughout the game. Things as simple as how many kids you have and if you hugged your dog enough can lead you to down different paths. It's kind of weird, but it's also kind of like life, because you really have no idea what or what you're not supposed to be doing. You just kind of ramble through it. Which actually pretty well describes the entire game, come to think of it.
Difficulty: 2
Once you figure out where the controls are, this game is pretty much as difficult as you want to make it. Have a lot of crops, have a little crops. Have tons of animals, have no animals. Breed your animals, buy them. Fish, don't fish. Seriously. I'm sure how big your farm and house are, how much money you have, and how successful you've been at the ranch business counts towards you in the end, but along the way, you control your destiny. Mostly. The occasional hurricane will tear up a bit of your land, putting your harvesting back a little, but that's about it. Oh, and don't let the chickens wander at night unless you just want to be able to stuff a pillow in the morning.
Overall: 7.5
I can definitely see how this game would appeal to a lot of different people. This game is slow, sure, but it's non-violent, easy for a child to play and yet it can be made almost challenging enough to get an adult. It's main charm lies, I believe, in it's quirky, non-normal game premises and bright, cheerful graphics, along with all the different small tasks you have to perform. Puzzle-solvers, patient simmers, and people who need a change of pace will probably like this game a lot. I'm really still on the fence, which is rare for me at the end of a review. I still can't see why I played it all day, I don't think I want to play it again. And yet...maybe...just a little....
Yeah, ok. I think I'll probably have it on again in less than a half an hour. See what I mean?
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