Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl for PSP Reviews by Gamers

When I first heard that I'd have the opportunity to play one of Natsume's newest PSP titles, Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, I was, admittedly, very excited. I've always had a particular fondness for the Harvest Moon series. Back in the day when I owned a Super Nintendo (alas, it's not with us anymore), Harvest Moon was the game to play. At least among my friends. We weren't very social people.''''So imagine my excitement when I reached for the accompanying instruction manual and read this little tidbit of information: "Life if a bumper crop of fun and sometimes difficult decisions. In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, you must choose between Destiny (playing as a boy) or Fate (playing as a girl). While the farming chores might be the same, how you live with the locals can be completely different." Incredible! Natsume has finally given us a Harvest Moon game that touches on deep, poetic questions about differences in life, and living; a game with a parallel story that questions the very meaning of Fate and Destiny, and how they intertwine (if at all). Perhaps there'll even be metaphysical commentaries on men and women, and how their lives take them in such different, yet intrinsically similar, directions. Imagine if Fate and Destiny ultimately clash and challenge us to decide what governs our very lives, all through the mundane yet Zen-like tasks of farming! Hooray!''''I was wrong. Completely wrong. Our biggest surprise at the office was that Harvest Moon Boy & Girl is actually just a compilation of two original PlayStation games, put together on one UMD. And they're (virtually) the same game, too. Nowhere on the box or within the instruction manual can this information be found. Harvest Moon "Boy" is actually just a rehashed version of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, while Harvest Moon "Girl" is just Harvest Moon For Girls, which actually could be called Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, For Girl. They're both the same game, just with slightly different overall narratives and a different main character. Confused? It's okay, we were too.''''''Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, although somewhat sly in its presentation, is still not a bad game in any sense. It's actually quite fun, if you know what you're getting yourself into. If you're patient, easily-pleased and you enjoy a fair dose of Japanese quirkiness, you'll likely have fun with this title. We primarily played the "Boy" version, so we'll be commenting mainly on that.''''You take on the role of a young man who inherits his grandfather's weathered and beaten-down farm. When you move out (due to somewhat unclear domestic issues at your original home), you're given the task of maintaining the farm and, ideally, getting it back to the beautifully quaint piece of land it used to be. You have three years to do so, in order for the surrounding village to accept you as a permanent resident. Each year is comprised of four seasons, and each season is comprised of thirty days. While you're outside, time ticks away in ten-minute intervals, so about two or three real seconds equals ten minutes in game time. If you do the math, you're looking at a very, very long game. And that's not even considering the fact that when your character enters a building, time stops completely, giving you even more "time" to do things each day. To put matters simply: Harvest Moon Boy & Girl will take you a while. And there's plenty to do.''''Maintaining your farm is all about balancing repairs while securing income. While you could spend all your day pulling weeds, clearing branches and fixing fences, if you don't plant crops for sale, you'll have no money. And money controls everything in this game. You need money to buy seeds, tools, food, presents for girls (or boys) and for purchasing animals. Yes, in addition to growing a variety of fruits and vegetables, depending on the season, you can also raise cows, sheep and chickens. Even more on your "To Do" list is the fact that you should be caring for your dog and horse, both of which don't require food, but do enjoy a daily hug and brushing.''''As you slowly build up your income, you just may have enough money to purchase additions to your farm and your house. You can add a kitchen to your little home, expand your barn and chicken coop, invest in new machines to make cheese and mayo from your dairy products; there's a bevy of options to choose from. You can even go fishing, pick apples, mine ore, help out at the local vineyard, and participate in festivals and town gatherings. Despite the fact that it seems like every day is a veritable madhouse of activities, things can actually get quite boring in Harvest Moon. There will be some days when the stores are closed, no festivals or events are being held, and you have nothing to do. Many a time have I sent my eager little farmer to bed only a few hours after he wakes up. Poor guy. How severely disturbed his internal clock must be.''''''One shining element of the game though, in my opinion, is the "dating sim" elements that are contained within. If you enjoy intensely Japanese games, then you've undoubtedly come across the dating sim before. And there's also a chance you liked it. Harvest Moon has several eligible guys and gals to charm with your farming wiles, and after you talk with them, give presents to them, sit under a starry night sky with them, etc., you can get married. O sweet farm love, how it touches the heart.''''However, when it comes to the game's graphics, audio and other technical features, Harvest Moon does not burn like your farmer lust. You're dealing with a PSone game here, and it shows in every way. Although the sprites and humbly-3D backgrounds may charm old-school gamers, everyone knows that the PSP can certainly do a lot better. And yet for some reason, Harvest Moon Boy & Girl runs into some horribly disruptive problems when it comes to gameplay. There are painful hesitations for opening up menus, switching your tools, and even picking up your dog. Yes, there's a one to two second delay for picking up your dog. You walk up to it, press X, and you have to wait for the little animation that picks him up into your arms. The dialogue moves even slower, and there's a lot of it to get through, which makes text reading a chore. Our heated question in regards to these problems is: why? There must have been a way to shorten load/reaction times when programming this game, so why do these issues still pop up? Even worse, the game is automatically stretched to widescreen, even though it's originally a 4:3 game. You can change the format in the options menu, and the game will kindly place a grassy border around the frame, but it not only crops the sides of the picture, but also the top and bottom as well, forcing you to squint at an even smaller cropped image. It's blasphemy, I tell you. Total blasphemy.''''Putting these technical concerns aside, the game can be very rewarding, even though there are dull moments and very limited environments to roam around in. Some of the game's true charm, however, comes from subtler, minute details. Like having different television programs to watch every day, which have their own dialogue that progresses every week. My favorite was an adorable love story called "The Fairy and Me," which documents the nostalgic, heart-pounding dialogues between a nameless male student and Crystal Wintermonth (she must be hot). You could tune in every Monday to get your fix. I sure did, when I wasn't watching "Mechabot Ultror on Summer Vacation." Yes, that's the name of Friday's special program. And it's awesome.

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