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IGN Review of Harvest Moon DS
Debuting nearly two decades ago, the world of Harvest Moon has filled an otherwise undiscovered niche, combining familiar role playing elements to one of the most unsuspecting game genres out there; farming. Even still, the franchise has managed to grow and evolve over the years, adding feature after feature to the general play mechanic in an attempt to truly deliver a fully comprehensive farming RPG. And yet, while the console versions have propelled into the 3D realm, allowing players to truly dive into the world both on a more visual and cinematic level, the handheld versions have stayed relatively static as technology has progressed. On Cube, Harvest Moon has shown players a world of realism with
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, only to then take a more stylistic approach to the world (seemingly inspired by Animal Crossing, as well as older Harvest Moon titles from years passed) with
Magical Melody.
For portable fans, Harvest Moon increases its wealth in steps rather than bounds, adding a feature here, new characters there, though continuing to keep the style more simplistic and straightforward. As the top portable Harvest Moon title (and for some, the best in its series, period), the Game Boy Advance's
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town set the standard three years ago, delivering a graphical presentation that rivaled the days of Super NES, while adding in a ton of elements into the mix, such as a full town to explore, tons of animals and plants to raise, a family system, and countless yearly events to participate in. In short, the game managed to truly hit the mark, delivering a self-contained world where you yourself dictated the direction of your own life.
So when the opportunity for a Harvest Moon title on DS arose, it's no surprise fans again went nuts, awaiting a far more intuitive world, now manipulated with their finger tips. As we caught the first visuals of the game in action, however, it became abundantly clear that the game wasn't exactly what we saw in our mind's eye, as Harvest Moon DS is literally an updated version of the GBA engine, offering very little software support to the DS hardware. In short, Harvest Moon DS feels like a game that's three years too late, as it combines every nuance of the GBA version along with every downside of a freshman DS effort. Add that time together with the year and a half it took to bring the game to America from Japan, and you've got a game that simply misses its window on the DS platform, though it has very little to do with the entertainment factor, and far more to do with the overall presentation. In fact, at no point in playing through Harvest Moon DS was the game boring, broken, or uninspired. It's simply the fact that we've already farmed these crops, cared for these sheep, and lived in this world.
For anyone not familiar with the Harvest Moon world, it's really very simple. As the token young farm-boy (always orphaned or alone for some reason), your job is to raise crops and care for your personal chunk of land in hopes of bringing the world peace, and with luck, turning a small fortune in the process. The story never really goes too far beyond that major point, though it always encompasses a "harvest goddess" that cares for the world, and a ton of Oompa Loompa men known as "harvest sprites". In the case of Harvest Moon DS, an evil witch has accidentally (but then, why she is considered evil is anyone's guess) put a curse on the harvest goddess, trapping her in another world. In hopes of bringing the goddess back, the harvest sprites have chased her into the alternate dimension, and now await you to bring them back in the only way you know how; farming. Every accomplishment you make, whether it's filling your water pail for the first time, falling in love, or raising a family could potentially rescue one of the harvest sprites in the process. Bottom line? You farm. Plain and simple.
And when it comes to the main mechanic of the game, there's really nothing broken. The game is set up exactly like previous versions, running on a four season accelerated clock that essentially converts every 15 minutes of gameplay to a day. Throughout the day, shops will open and close, people will gather at local hotspots, and the weather will take its toll on your crops and live-stalk. Aside from learning to order materials by phone, it took us mere minutes to step into the game and get settled, and before we knew it we had an abundance of cucumbers and turnips sprouting. Even the general control is handled almost entirely like the previous GBA games, though all inventory is now used on the bottom screen, allowing players to drag and drop items into various equipment slots. Likewise, you can save or access farming data at any time by tapping bottom screen icons, or even control your character with on-screen buttons of you so desire. The majority of players will want to use the hardware buttons, however, using the touch screen for stat management and item control primarily.
Unfortunately, item management and stat monitoring is essentially where DS functionality ends. The only other primary function the DS utilizes for touch is for animal interaction, where players can use the "touch glove" (purchased after a few days of work) to bring a large version of their animal onto the bottom screen. Here, players can pet, brush, or sheer (sheep only) their animals by directly interacting with them. Aside from giving the game a more Nintendogs feel, however, the touch system is actually nothing more than a novelty, as we'd rather run up to a sheep, sheer it quickly, and move on with the game. Harvest Moon is often as much about speed as it is stat management, as players are constantly battling to get as much done in a day as possible, and it's tough to sit there and sheer a sheep or pet your dog when your mind is racing with things you've still yet to do in a day. Of course there will be players that love the animal interaction, but while they claim it's an interactive achievement, we'll call it a good start. The blunt truth of the matter is that Harvest Moon DS uses the same interface, visual style, animations, and even a few of the similar characters as the GBA versions did, and the advancements made with the DS hardware just don't cut it from a gameplay standpoint.
On the presentation side of things, Harvest Moon DS is essentially a more open version of the preexisting GBA formula, though again it isn't necessarily better. The bottom screen layout uses the same age-old blocky text, and for some reason touchable icons aren't surrounded by bounding boxes, so players are literally tapping the words directly. Taken it one step further, the game will often switch between using an "ok" button, or using the A button to make selections, so there's a bit of guess and check work when navigating menus. The best setup we had was either holding our stylus in our hands during the entire play session, or using the comfort stylus to free up our hands while playing. The cumbersome navigation comes when players are continuously asked to use pinpoint precision, while simultaneously working with the D-pad and buttons in a time-dependant world. The bottom screen is far too bland, and the touch implementation screams "freshman effort" at nearly every turn.
©2006-09-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, only to then take a more stylistic approach to the world (seemingly inspired by Animal Crossing, as well as older Harvest Moon titles from years passed) with
Magical Melody.
For portable fans, Harvest Moon increases its wealth in steps rather than bounds, adding a feature here, new characters there, though continuing to keep the style more simplistic and straightforward. As the top portable Harvest Moon title (and for some, the best in its series, period), the Game Boy Advance's
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town set the standard three years ago, delivering a graphical presentation that rivaled the days of Super NES, while adding in a ton of elements into the mix, such as a full town to explore, tons of animals and plants to raise, a family system, and countless yearly events to participate in. In short, the game managed to truly hit the mark, delivering a self-contained world where you yourself dictated the direction of your own life.
So when the opportunity for a Harvest Moon title on DS arose, it's no surprise fans again went nuts, awaiting a far more intuitive world, now manipulated with their finger tips. As we caught the first visuals of the game in action, however, it became abundantly clear that the game wasn't exactly what we saw in our mind's eye, as Harvest Moon DS is literally an updated version of the GBA engine, offering very little software support to the DS hardware. In short, Harvest Moon DS feels like a game that's three years too late, as it combines every nuance of the GBA version along with every downside of a freshman DS effort. Add that time together with the year and a half it took to bring the game to America from Japan, and you've got a game that simply misses its window on the DS platform, though it has very little to do with the entertainment factor, and far more to do with the overall presentation. In fact, at no point in playing through Harvest Moon DS was the game boring, broken, or uninspired. It's simply the fact that we've already farmed these crops, cared for these sheep, and lived in this world.
For anyone not familiar with the Harvest Moon world, it's really very simple. As the token young farm-boy (always orphaned or alone for some reason), your job is to raise crops and care for your personal chunk of land in hopes of bringing the world peace, and with luck, turning a small fortune in the process. The story never really goes too far beyond that major point, though it always encompasses a "harvest goddess" that cares for the world, and a ton of Oompa Loompa men known as "harvest sprites". In the case of Harvest Moon DS, an evil witch has accidentally (but then, why she is considered evil is anyone's guess) put a curse on the harvest goddess, trapping her in another world. In hopes of bringing the goddess back, the harvest sprites have chased her into the alternate dimension, and now await you to bring them back in the only way you know how; farming. Every accomplishment you make, whether it's filling your water pail for the first time, falling in love, or raising a family could potentially rescue one of the harvest sprites in the process. Bottom line? You farm. Plain and simple.
And when it comes to the main mechanic of the game, there's really nothing broken. The game is set up exactly like previous versions, running on a four season accelerated clock that essentially converts every 15 minutes of gameplay to a day. Throughout the day, shops will open and close, people will gather at local hotspots, and the weather will take its toll on your crops and live-stalk. Aside from learning to order materials by phone, it took us mere minutes to step into the game and get settled, and before we knew it we had an abundance of cucumbers and turnips sprouting. Even the general control is handled almost entirely like the previous GBA games, though all inventory is now used on the bottom screen, allowing players to drag and drop items into various equipment slots. Likewise, you can save or access farming data at any time by tapping bottom screen icons, or even control your character with on-screen buttons of you so desire. The majority of players will want to use the hardware buttons, however, using the touch screen for stat management and item control primarily.
Unfortunately, item management and stat monitoring is essentially where DS functionality ends. The only other primary function the DS utilizes for touch is for animal interaction, where players can use the "touch glove" (purchased after a few days of work) to bring a large version of their animal onto the bottom screen. Here, players can pet, brush, or sheer (sheep only) their animals by directly interacting with them. Aside from giving the game a more Nintendogs feel, however, the touch system is actually nothing more than a novelty, as we'd rather run up to a sheep, sheer it quickly, and move on with the game. Harvest Moon is often as much about speed as it is stat management, as players are constantly battling to get as much done in a day as possible, and it's tough to sit there and sheer a sheep or pet your dog when your mind is racing with things you've still yet to do in a day. Of course there will be players that love the animal interaction, but while they claim it's an interactive achievement, we'll call it a good start. The blunt truth of the matter is that Harvest Moon DS uses the same interface, visual style, animations, and even a few of the similar characters as the GBA versions did, and the advancements made with the DS hardware just don't cut it from a gameplay standpoint.
On the presentation side of things, Harvest Moon DS is essentially a more open version of the preexisting GBA formula, though again it isn't necessarily better. The bottom screen layout uses the same age-old blocky text, and for some reason touchable icons aren't surrounded by bounding boxes, so players are literally tapping the words directly. Taken it one step further, the game will often switch between using an "ok" button, or using the A button to make selections, so there's a bit of guess and check work when navigating menus. The best setup we had was either holding our stylus in our hands during the entire play session, or using the comfort stylus to free up our hands while playing. The cumbersome navigation comes when players are continuously asked to use pinpoint precision, while simultaneously working with the D-pad and buttons in a time-dependant world. The bottom screen is far too bland, and the touch implementation screams "freshman effort" at nearly every turn.
©2006-09-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved