-MMX's Review of Harvest Moon: Magical Melody-


Oh boy. Remember when I said Super Scribblenauts was the most addicting game I've ever played? Well......I forgot about Harvest Moon Magical Melody. Any Harvest Moon nerd *cough* Eirinn : *cough* will tell you, Harvest Moon is a franchise about farming (Suprise suprise.) I however am not a harvest moon nerd since this is the only game out of the series I've played. Realeased by Natsume for the Gamecube and the Wii a little bit later, harvest moon magical melody is a spectacular game. Very family friendly, and overall THEE best game I've played on the Wii. So let's dive right in into my review of Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.


Story (9): Harvest Moon Magical Melody doesn't have a huge expansive story like an RPG, but It's a nice relaxing break from marathoning all of Final Fantasy. The story is simple in scale. In a quaint little village called "Flower Bud Village" lived the Harvest Goddess, but one day she turned to stone because the people stopped believing in her. Which angered your rival Jamie, and now Jamie hates people in general and turns more bitter than the herbs found of the mountain. When your character (Adam is his regular name or if you choose the girl it's Amanda) moves into town you're informed of the Harvest Goddess' predicament. And it's up to you to gather the magical notes all around Flower Bud Village to make insturments and save her. Like I said. A VERY relaxing break from huge stories. And for making a light hearted story work, Harvest Moon Magical Melody gets a 9.


Graphics (8): The graphics are quite nice and cheery, like Super Scribblenauts, Harvest Moon Magical Melody has it's own style and it makes it WORK. It's mostly cheery and cartoony yet can turn serious if it needs to be. But for the most part, it keeps itself bright and cheery, the only thing I DONT like is the lighting. My god the lighting. Mainly at night time it can be hard to see where the hell to go unless your standing up. However I like to play it while im sitting down on the couch. So that can ruin the immersion for me. This is especially irratating in the fall season. Where it's ALWAYS dark even at day. I try to just get through the fall yet it can make me agitated at times. For unique graphics but horrible lighting problems, Harvest Moon Magical Melody gets an 8.


Sound (9): Such good music, much wow. There isnt many tracks to the game, but the 4 main tracks not including the title screen music are all delightful. Spring is nice and cheery repersenting a brand new year and more stuff to do. Summer is nice and relaxing with a bit of hula like music mixed it (at least that's what comes to mind for me.) Fall is somber and kind of sad. Saying the fun times are over for summer. And finally Winter is cheery (there's that word again.) Because of...Idk winter wonderland? Anyways, I find all of these tracks to be most delightful. For an awesome soundtrack (or at least 4 songs that are awesome, and yes I know there's more.) Harvest Moon Magical Melody gets a 9.


Depth (10): This.....is impossible......Good EVERYTHING?! Yes, even the depth is thorough. First you have the notes, the main thing, you get these by doing certain things like going to the island or putting out a fire. (Even though the stationary one is- never mind) Then you have the shipping lists. Shipping certain things is necessary for getting 100% in this game. You also have all of the fish, villagers, getting 10 hearts with all of said villagers, marrying a girl, and too much. Somehow they were able to fit all of that onto a little disc. For amazingly deep depth. Harvest Moon Magical Melody gets a 10.


Addictiveness (10): "Depth and Addictiveness go hand in hand" If I had a nickel every time I said that. Anyways, this game has ridiculous addictiveness that even Super Scribblenauts can't match. When your not caring for livestock, your probably fishing, mining, talking to villagers, giving them stuff, or getting notes. The only thing I don't really like is how short the days are. 1 minute in game is 1 real world second. So that means one minute in real life is one hour, and so on. So it only take 12 minutes before it's 6:00 PM (Unless of course you stay inside, where time stops) Also, you cant stay up too late or else you'll pass out from exhaustion due to the stamina bar. For ridiculously addicting gameplay, Harvest Moon Magical Melody receives a 10.


Difficulty (5): This is game is not too difficult, there are only 2 times it gets hard. When trying to reach level 100 of either cave, and when you're trying to do a lot of stuff on low stamina. The mines are random. You can till the soil and find the stairs, but it's better to step on cracks in the floor. In lower levels It's easy to go up a bit in levels but around the 70-90s it gets cheap. If an exclamation mark (!) you go downward a minimum of 2 floors. If you get a question mark (?) You go up a minimum of 1 floor. But in the later levels of the mines, you can get the question mark like 3 times and be sent up halfway through the mine. ESPECIALLY in lake cave. Also, lake cave floor 10 is a dead end, if you end up there, you go back to the beginning. And It's easy to get to lake cave floor 10 even if you don't want to. The stamina thing is simple. Every action requires stamina. Even walking around. If you get too low on stamina and then run out, you are FORCED to skip an entire day and go home and rest. Even if you had to do something beforehand. For these reasons yet only these reasons. Harvest Moon Magical Melody gets a 5 for difficulty.


Overall (9.9): This game is damn near perfect. With pretty much impressive EVERYTHING it would definitely get a 10. But for the few cheap things in the caves and with the stamina, not to mention the lighting problem I mentioned earlier, this game misses out by just a bit. If you can find it somewhere and have a Wii/Gamecube I definitely recommend picking it up. Harvest Moon Magical Melody get a 9.9/10 and gets my award of being in my top 5 favorite games of all time AND the best Wii I've ever played. EVER. It even gets the award for most addicting game I've ever played after Super Scribblenauts had it for just 1 review (Poar Scribblenauts :C) So thank you all for reading my long as crap review, this is Mega Mewtwo X signing out.