Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town for Game Boy Adv Reviews by Gamers

It's been almost two years since the first Harvest Moon hit the Game Boy Advance in the US. Friends of Mineral Town was, and still is, a great "get a life" simulation that offered up an enormous amount of gameplay that could literally go on forever. As a follow-up to the game, Natsume is offering Game Boy Advance gamers Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town, but put down those wallets if you've already experienced the original. This game isn't much more than a character swap of the original concept, changing out a girl for the lead guy character, as well as guys for the girl town inhabitants in which to "woo." It's still a much recommended GBA title, but only for those who haven't yet lived the farm life in the original Friends of Mineral Town.

Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town begins a little more differently than the original Friends of Mineral Town: out of sheer boredom, you've just purchased an unkempt farm from an old man who passed away months ago. With no prior obligations in your life, it's time to start a new one in Mineral Town. The necessary equipment to get the farm going has been left behind, but it's going to take a lot of hard work to get the farm in working condition. The task is to, of course, get the farm up and running and maintain it enough to generate enough cashflow. Naturally, you'll have to spend money to make money, and that comes in the form of buying cows for milk, sheep for wool, and chickens for eggs, additional income to provide more money for chicken feed and animal fodder, medicine for the sick, and upgrades to the barn, chicken coop, and house that will enable more generated income. All of this will help in shooting for that ultimate dream: a cottage in town, a husband, and a healthy child.

The game is essentially a well-designed, incredibly involving test to see how well you can manage resources. The game does start out slowly, with a packet of seeds and a weed, stone, and stick covered field masquerading as a farm. Much of the early days are dedicated to truly hard work, cleaning up the area and removing all the brush in order to make the farm a lot more habitable for the crops to grow. One packet of seed is enough to generate enough income for more seeds, eventually enough for a chicken or cow. The strategy is, of course, how to use the money that you've earned to the best of your farm's abilities.

The only enemy in Harvest Moon is the clock itself, and a day in Mineral Town lasts about ten minutes. It's actually a tough time to gauge since the clock only rolls in outside environments; if you're more affectionate to the animals or a heavy miner, the clock doesn't move at all. On the farm, though, the time ticks away at a rate of 5 seconds for every 10 minutes of game time. So, it's a challenge to "Beat the Clock" when out tilling the fields, planting the seeds, watering the ground, and harvesting the crops, a cycle that's neverending if you're good enough. A season lasts for thirty game days, of which the seasons change and the current crop withers, which then requires you to clean up the dead plants and replace them with seasonal vegetables...the sooner you get them going, the faster the income's generated. But for every action comes an obvious reaction: fatigue. You're only human, and hard work will seriously take its toll...which means that you'll have to spend a significant time in the hot springs to bring your energy level back up. Later on you'll discover elements which will increase strength and energy, as well as farming ability (levelling up farm equipment is an absolute must), but in the early days it's a fight to get the farm going.

There's so much to do in the game that it would be insane to expect one person to handle all the farming tasks. Thankfully there are these friendly elfish sprites that will jump at the chance to do chores for you...but you'll have to befriend them first with gifts that they like. So, not only do you have to manage "employees," you'll have to make sure they like you enough to keep working for "the man." These little guys are an extremely important element to explore since your hard working will inevitably cause you to neglect one of the goals in the game: to woo a boyfriend. There are several choice males in the game that you can latch onto and smother with affection, each one's affection level for you represented by a heart icon throbbing on their on-screen representation. It's a slow process to get a guy to actually take a liking to you, and players could spend several seasons attempting this goal. There is competition, though, since there's an in-town match for each of these townfolk...and you'll have to act quickly in order to get their man of choice to go with you instead of the canned in-game choice.

Animals can die. Crops can whither. Your horse can leave you. But life goes on, and it's up to you to make that life work. Inpregnate a cow. Replace those crops. Be nice to the next horse that comes your way. But don't overwork yourself; catch some bugs and fish. Join in the scheduled town festivities. Play with the sprite elves and build their harvesting, watering, and animal caring abilities. This is your second life. Much of the replay comes from repetition, though, so don't expect a fresh feel in the years beyond the first one.

I can go on and on about what can be done in Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town, truth be told I could never mention everything. I'll leave that to the FAQ writers. But suffice it to say that this game has so much going for it that it's one of the biggest time consumers of the year. The game has always been this way, but with every new version of Harvest Moon comes new gameplay elements that increase the replay value and its "Time Suckage" factor.

The biggest complaint we had with the original Harvest Moon GBA title was its rather sloppy localization process. What was sloppy in the original has been cleaned up for its follow-up -- two years is a long time to tighten up the text. The one complaint we have with this version: it's extremely "me too," especially for those who have already plowed through the original game. There's not a whole lot new for those already experienced in Friends of Mineral Town. It's not so much a sequel as it is a retooling of the original concept for a new audience.

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