I had never heard of this game. I accidentally found it by searching for "Harvest Moon", which was really strange. But hey, I love trying new games and I thought I'd give it a try.
The game came out in 1991 in Japan for the NES. For what I've found, people seem to universally adore this game. I read blurbs that claimed the graphics were 'groundbreaking' for the NES, that the background sound was "Amazing and totally appropriate"...even the Vizzed description has "fluid animations and rich graphic cut scenes".
Uh. I don't know if I played the same game as these guys. Or maybe I'm just too hard on games. I don't know.
The game wasn't that bad, I'll put that out now. I kind of liked it. But I didn't find it amazing, ground-breaking, rich or fluid. I found it pretty much age-appropriate. The graphics were alright, for the NES, but nothing to shout home about. The movement was fluid, ok, but the background music was...ugh, even for the time, and the cut scenes were anything but 'rich'. Mostly they were bad, bad, bad. Static scenes, oddly interposed realist animation with a weirdly drawn anime inspired style, and lots of words.
The platforming was typical for the NES system-kind of difficult, frustrating, and touchy. Remember places in the original Mario Brothers games where if you didn't jump just exactly right you'd fall into a pit? Well, take that times five and welcome to Moon Crystal. Not only are there touchy jumps to make, but half the time you need to hoist yourself up on a platform, which can be done by being in exactly the right place under the platform, facing the right way, and by jumping until your little guy manages to grab the platform.
Add into that the fact that all enemies respawn as soon as they are out of your sight, so if you go a bit too far to the left, then have to correct, the machine gun toting ninja-like guy will be back and shooting at you.
Yes, I said machine-gun toting ninja-like guy. They're probably more accurately called cultists or something, but he looked like he was wearing a gi and hood or mask, so ninja-like he was. Or knife-toting ninja-like guy. Or gargoyle? Or lava-spitting spider. There doesn't seem to be a lot of effort to keep any kind of coherent flow with the bad guys you face.
Also, don't get me started on turning around. The second boss-battle was hell for me because I could not get my little guy to turn around. He'd face the wrong way and get stabbed in the butt, then I'd get him to turn finally and he'd be the wrong way round again. Running and jumping were actually not that bad, fairly fluid in an early Nintendo kind of way, but turning...turning was a problem.
The other thing I found annoying was that when you die, you loose all the extra hearts, weapon upgrades and jump shoes you'd collected. Ok, I can see that. But the problem is that each level is made up of sections, and when you die if you've passed into a new section you can start from there. BUT if you do that, you don't keep any of the heart containers (sorry Zelda, it's just a good word for it) that you collected in the last section...and you can't go back. It got a bit frustrating.
The only good thing is that you have unlimited continues, so every time you make it to a new level you can start from there if you die all the way. However, you start each level with...nothing and three hearts, no matter how many hearts you had when you beat up the boss on the last level. How unfair is that? Why do we loose everything just by walking out of the forest and showing up at the town...castle...thing?
Graphics: 8
For an Nintendo game, the graphics were actually fairly good in the main game screen. They featured Nintendo's typical repeating pattern scheme-the same rocks, the same buildings-and sometimes the color choices were a bit difficult (why make the sky the same color as the buldings, unless you were actively trying to make my head hurt. Were you?)
The cut-scenes, as I've pointed out earlier, were just terrible, but that too was a Nintendo normal. Believe me, I've seen worse (on newer systems, to boot.) Everyone who's played NES games knows that the cut scenes in those games are just bad. I wouldn't make a big deal out of it, except that phrase on the box is still killing me. ..."rich graphic cut scenes that move the story forward'. Well, yes, they do that, but rich graphics? Really?
Sound: 6
If you've read any of my previous reviews, you know how I dislike the Nintendo and Game Boy sound library. The music was...surprisingly not that terrible. I mean, it was electronic, repetitive, jarring and ear-drilling, but the songs were alright and on the second level, I think I almost recognized the song they were butcherin...uh, I mean, playing. I did not mute this game. Shocking, for me, I know, but it's true.
Addictiveness: 4
I think I'm being a bit nice on this score. To be honest, I wanted to quit playing it long before I did, but I always try to give a game a good play-through before I review it. To be honest, it just got boring. There's a few new enemies, but mostly you're facing the same (insert name of weapon)-carrying ninja-like guys the whole game and jumping stuff. There's not a whole lot of excitement left by about the third level, and even the introduction of a pirate ship level didn't stir my interest up much.
Story: 4
Ok. So you play this kid named Ricky Slater (really) who's Dad (and apparently the entire town except for our boy Ricky) gets kidnapped. They were after the "moon crystal", which we find out a little bit about later. All the someones include your girlfriend(?), who tells you a ghost story about waking dead people waking up at the full moon. Sounds like we got our mythology a bit crossed here, but ok. So we're off to save our Dad, our girlfriend(?), and the entire town from some guy named Count Crimson who wants to...harness the power of the Moon Crystal to cause the dead to rise from their graves and take over the world. (Mwhahahaha time, I suppose.) And a kid with a knife is totally going to bring him down.
As a plot, it's alright. Thin, improbable, and with holes big enough to fly a small helicopter through, but alright. You find out more along the way (aided, as usual, by complete strangers who feel the urge to give you inside information that they shouldn't have).
Depth: 3
There is no depth to this game. It's pretty much here to here to here to here to here. A little bit of exploring in each level will net you extra lives, extra hearts, and weapon upgrades, but it's not usually that hard to find them. The game is on the longish side, which is a good thing, and the continues make it less frustrating as you get further along.
Difficulty: 9
It's not the bad guys that make this game difficult (though they do get harder the further you go up), it's the controls. Timing your jumps is the hardest thing to do on this game. You'll die more often from that than any enemy-induced trauma, believe me.
Overall: 7.5
It's not a terrible game, but it's definitely not a good game either. It's one of those run-of-the-mill, boring games that Nintendo cranked out between really good games. I'm glad I got a chance to play it, but I won't be playing it again. Just goes to show what you can find randomly sometimes, huh? I'd say give it a try if you are bored and have played everything else you really wanted to, but don't expect anything grand. |
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