Age Rating:
3+ (PEGI)
What is it?
Some sort of hideously complicated farming/village sim.
Is it fun?
No!
Is it worth the money? (£24.99)
No!
Why not?
I’ll freely admit, I Do Not Get Harvest Moon. Even so, in the spirit of representing an Average Gamer, I’m writing this as someone entirely new to the franchise…
What the hell is Harvest Moon DS supposed to be? I’ve played Animal Crossing a lot so I get the concept of a relaxing game where you wander around collecting things. Harvest Moon seems to be like that, only a thousand times more complicated and without the helpful villagers to let you know what the hell is going on.
For starters, I get my new game, wander about and eventually discover that I should be tilling my field. There’s loads of debris in the form of rocks and logs. Not a problem. I soon discover how to pick them up and proceed throw them over the edge where they disappear.
WRONG!
They didn’t disappear at all. I was fly-tipping! The other townsfolk don’t like that at all. Why do I care? Well, I’m not entirely sure even after reading through sites like Fogu. Apparently the witch likes my littering. Do I want her favour? I have no freaking idea.
Another example; you can give random presents to women. Sometimes they’ll love them. Other times they’ll be hurt and offended and make snide remarks. I think affects my prospects of marrying them, which may or may not be a good thing. I hate it because there’s simply no way in-game to tell what they like and dislike. Even worse, I can’t work it out through trial and error. I have immense trouble recalling what I gave to who because everyone just blurs together into a haze of quirky villager. Write it down? Please. I already have a job.
The game is riddled with pitfalls like this. Considering the gameplay is about farming, maintaining your town and getting married, it seems a pretty big liability. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this complexity is with this choice quote by Jim/tyr888 on Yahoo! Answers:
“Before you can get married you must upgrade your house. Your spouse is not going to want to live in the tiny house you start out with! To upgrade you will first need to unlock Channel 2 on the Sprite Station. To open the channel you must buy something from Karen’s telephone store for 10 days.
When you unlock the Tv Shopping Channel 2, watch it every day. Eventually you will see the Table for sale. The little round table will only cost you 500 G. Call the Tv Shopping operators using your telephone and order the Table.
Only after you have received the Table can you then hire Gotz to increase the size of your house for the first time! You must own the Kitchen before he will upgrade your house a second time if you own the Japanese version. The English version does not require the kitchen. “
In other words…
This game is freaking complicated (or in-depth, if you prefer). I hated it. YMMV.
Screenshots
Popularity: 32% [?]
January 15th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
You shouldn’t hate the game because its ‘complicated’. You need to form a daily routine, ie. water crops in the morning, look for wife at lunch and work on the farm or undertake in mini games etc in the evening.
You ought to try out the original game, it was just released on the Australian Wii Virtual Console and I assume the UK VC as well. It is one of my favourite games and is the best Harvest Moon game.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Bizzare to hate a game because it’s ‘complicated.’ I dislike simulations like HM because they’re, well, simulations! They’re boring at times, have to be in a mood to watch the grass grow–literally. But saying complicated as a reason is plain weird. Did you really play the game?
January 15th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Daily routine? Like I said, I already have a job. I don’t need a virtual one on top of it. I did that - up in the morning, chop some wood/go to the mines/water plants (before I found enough of the harvest sprites). That part I got. It was the rest that completely lost me. I’d enter a room and characters would say something random. I always got the impression that I was supposed to respond but how?
It’s not that it’s complex, per se. It’s that it’s complex and the in-game support isn’t really good enough to help newbies get the point of everything that’s going on. The TV channels help with the technical stuff like farm buildings.
As it says in the Yahoo! answer above, to unlock Channel 2 you need to buy something from Karen’s store for 10 days. What? Where’s the logic there?
Then you wait until there’s a table for sale and buy that, which allows Gotz to increase the size of the house. Eh?? Why would someone need a table to build an extension?
That’s my grind with the game. Not difficulty, but lack of coherent guidance through the complexity. AC:WW does a good job of guiding you through the basics. Pokémon has all that under-the-hood gubbins but you can progress without ever knowing it’s there. HM:DS just drops you in a town full of unwritten rules and women who refuse to say what will really piss them off until I do it.
Hmm, perhaps it’s just a better simulation of rural life than I was expecting ;)
February 13th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
i love the game as you play on it gets complacated i can admit but it is super fun as it is full of suprise me and my sister have to take turns im alrady in year 2 and im only 10 i starde play it again about 2 days ago
February 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I LOVE this game how can you not like it
ok it does get annoying sometimes
but if you have a routine it will work out
and you get channel 2 by buying things from karens store cos channel 2 is a shopping channel
March 5th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
OMG!Harvest Moon is the best game ever making it complicated onmly makes it more of a chalange= more FUN!!!!1111
April 27th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
WELL I AM MARRIED ANG ABOUT TO HAVE A CHILD WITH MUFFY
I LOVE THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 13th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I don’t get it either! The reviews are fantastic and the idea really appealling, but I can’t do anything! I can gather stone and wood, have a hen house and four hens and grow crops but that’s it! I can’t get the villagers to say anything other than the same lines to me, even when I speak to them every day and I don’t know how to access any mini games. I’m a reasonably intelligent person, with some experiece of games that are described as similar to this but I can’t seem to make any progress. Any tips would be appreciated, as I am determined to figure it out!
May 14th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
ROFL
Thanks Kay. Glad I’m not the only one.
As far as I can tell, you can give the stuff you find to the girls and if they like them, they’ll like you more which may help with the dialogue. I did a bunch of mining and gave jewellery to people but didn’t get a whole lot farther.
Finding the right harvest sprites unlocks the casino games. A bit of googling will help that.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I could never understand the appeal of these kind of games, like you say, I enough routine things to do in real-life without having to go and do chores in a game over and over.
I’m sure some people must like it, but it’s certainly not one for me.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
how can you not like this game? its awesome. i love the series.Sure its complicated but you need to play the other series t really figure it out. for example to play the newer versions of pokemon to really get it you need to play the older versions
June 8th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
omg how could you hate this game its fun and you will never guess whats going to happen the next day. FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!!!!!!
June 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
omg you guys are so stupid harvest moon is the best game ever.