Design/Graphics: 95
This is by far, the prettiest Harvest Moon game i played for a portable (which is the only Harvest Moon that i DO play). the trees sway in the wind. the water ripples, the flowers bloom and the snowmans stare. I'm not too sure how much a DS can handle, but I'd say that this game was simply amazing in the graphics department. It has a soft feel that makes you feel comfortable and happy inside.
Features/Possibilities: 80
The point of this Harvest Moon is to sell things in your bazaar. Sounds interesting huh? it is, and its simply adorable when you see your character ringing her/his heart out for the customers to come and buy your stuff.
But they took out mining in this game which was kind of a bummer, and fishing is limited to only a few places. The items all have rankings of stars from .5 to 5 and its okay, cept when you have to carry fish till bazaar time (which is once a week) and you run out of room since different fishes and differents ranks don't mesh at all. Its not like sunshine islands where you could just squish everything together, so you need a lot of space for that.
There are windmills that you use for the game to make/ferment things and its a interesting new experience, though it takes forever and i mean FOREVER for some of the stuff to actually be created. But the windmills make more money than simple crops and sell for more in the bazaar.
you get cats and dogs to take care of your sheep and chicken and once they're trained, they'll take out the livestock for you. very handy and no more dragging the chicken out one by one when your cats have been trained. Its a very nice feature that i welcomed greatly in harvest moon.
You can also jump in this game (double jump) though it isn't a very needed feature and you can catch bugs, though one bugs looks like the other and you can't really tell if you caught one already or not.
No upgrades are needed except the expansion of your fields, creation of basment and expansion of your storage. There is a horse racing section too that comes a long later as well.
oh and when you throw something, you don't lose it. THAT was a much needed thing in harvest moon. animal or item they make a boing sound and bounce when you toss them on the ground.
This game had a lot of new features, and lost some few, classic (?), features that older harvest moon games used to have.
Characters/Bios: 45
The characters in this town were very two-dimensional and i was sorely disappointed. They're cute in their own ways, but don't go any deeper than that. Have an internal problem? they talk to you about it in a very light hearted sort of way that makes it not that big of a deal (if there IS any problems at all). They were too happy go lucky and too ... naive?
there are guys and girls you can marry since times have changed in harvest moon here goes.
Ivan: He's the teacher of the game. Kind older brother type.
Freya: The independent woman in this game. She has long brown hair and gives off an air of elegance.
Dirk: The boyish younger brother type. Ivan's younger brother. Wears a hat with a feather in it.
Antoinette: the goth-ish girl in this game. a designer with a social problem like personality. has blue short hair.
Sherry: the mayors daughter. perfect goody goody i'd say.
Lloyd: the mysterious guy in this game. Wears a turban with glasses. always work with him.
Angelo: the artist. kind of lazy and laid back with long brown hair and an orange/yellow berrett
Daisy: the hotel maid. cutesy, blond curly short hair. loves sweet and wears a white and pink /striped maid outfit.
Amir: the foreign prince. dark skin and white hair.
Emiko: a priestess of sorts. long black hair with traditional (japanese?) dress. doesn't know much about outside world.
yes, compared to FoMT, this is a much shorter character bio. the characters don't really go much deeper than that. maybe as i play deeper in, an epiphany will hit me. They were cute, but nothing staggering. I mean sunshine islands didn't have deep characters either, but SI had more realistic ones. GB characters were fine, just not very interesting to talk to/ marry.
plus the mayor kind of ticked me off. i don't know whyyy.
Comparisons/Gamplayabilty: 40
The most recent HM i played, and the one that disappointed the most.
It didn't have any mines and if compared to SI/IoH it lacks by a lot. There were upgrades for this game, no sprites, no goddess, no shipping guy. by far the graphics were the best, but the characters lacked dept, the place was too small and the .... kay this is really disorangized. i'll put it like this.
The graphics were really good and it was very pleasing to see. i was very happy when i first started playing the game. but the fishing was inconvienent. There are only four fishing spots and you need multiple different rods to catch different fish and you can only cook like 5 of them.
the map was completely useless compared to SIs maps and the town and are was so small. there are six places overall. that's even less than mineral town which had 8 places to explore.
the characters were bland and you diddn't really feel connected to them all. when the characters were at red heart, you couldn't even tell that they liked you. it was barely noticeable and didn't help motivation wise for marriage.
The herding for the animals was a splendid idea. i really liked that.
you only have one watering place again. i liked the fact that you could draw water from any source of water, but not in this game. its like SI where you HAVE to get it from one area. kind of bothersome.
there are so much more fruits and vegetables you can grow which is nice.
the animals look the same as SI, but that's not too bad.
no more shipping bin guys. you have to store everything (till you run out of room, which you will find is QUITE often) to sell at the bazaar once a week.
time goes by 1 min = 1 sec in real life. Its very tiring and slow, and you find it hard to fill the days...
different levels of winds and you can actually go out in a storm day, though it doesn't matter since your farm doesn't ever fill up with weeds and rocks and your animals don't get herded on stormy days. also, it's pointless cause your barn is attached to your house so you can take care of them without ever going outside. wish they had thought of that for ALL the previous games, but no. i really liked that.
if i think of more, i'll write about it.
Guree Factor: 30
okay, its really low, i know and sorry if my review came off as negative. its just, i REALLY didn't like this game. i had my moments, but it wasn't really worth it. the characters were boring, the farming was bleh, the town was bleh. i don't know.
and the thing that pissed me off was two things. one, the time goes by WAY too slowly in this game. you know in harvest moon games, when winter came along (like in FoMT) you'd have NOTHING to do. you'd run out very quickly? that's waht happens in this game, but its EVERY SINGLE DAY. and winter, you jsut wake up feed animals give gifts, sleep. literally. the whole 1min=1sec thing really ticked me off sooo much. you finish everything by 10am and till 5 you have nothing to do. why wait till five? you can water your plants again to make them produce faster. but oh gawd there is nothing to do between those times. i talk to the villagers, give gfits, catch bugs collect items, sell the items and bugs, go around and talk to more people jump into the river and hope for something lucky item take a shower jump into rivers some more, collect more bugs talk to more people. and bam, its like 2pm. so i go around and talk to more people and catch more bugs and jump into more river and you got the picture.. then you get the animals and its not that bad, considereing it takes like 2 -4 hours to brush and milk all your cows and sheep! yea, thats right, you sit there for 2-4 mins brushing cow. its a process i found very painful. it was torture to go up to a cow and watch your character brush it for like 5 seconds when i became very accostumed to brush move brush move brush move. but it fills your time, so i always made sure i put a LOT of effort into brushing my cows, taking care of my chickens. then i'd go around and collect and give and sell and such then come back and re water. then train my cat and dog till bed time. it got VERY tedious after a while and there were times i wanted to fling my DS across the room and jump on it with very hard shoes on. i had to plan how to make my days LAST LONGER, when normally it was how much stuff could i cram in one day. normally, i used to go to bed in HM like around 2 am trying to finish one more thing, but in this game as soon as it hit 6 i got to bed. until the animals, then bed time was around 10.
second annoying factor: the brushing the cows part. oh my a;ghjl;ertio;ajd;ra. i REALLY hated that part soo much it became a part two. i felt like my life was wasted brushing those stupid cows. and they move so much so that you lose track of ones you brushed and ones you don't. so i'd brush atleast 12 times even if i only have 6 cows. gawwwww. and the game lets you brush them for those 5 secs and you don't know you already brushed them till the music sign doesn't come up. and even if you did know, you couldn't stop yourself. the whole time thing was okay, when i got the animals and thigns to do, but after brushign those cows for a week, i wanted to shoot myself, and it isn't just a way of speaking. i really wanted to stab myself and let the misery end!
Total: 2.9/5
Yea, i really didn't like this game. It had nice features, but the features were ruined by gameplay and character which makes a game good. i mean no matter how wonderful the graphics are, it doesn't matter if the gameplay sucks. i mean, if a gameplay is amazing than we ignore the horrible graphics and that is why some of us still those old favorites. this didn't cut it for me. i tried to play this game again and again, and gave up after the fourth try. it didn't have that harvest moon magic. but that's just me, guree. you might like it, though i think most weren't as satisfied either.
