N-Philes

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life

Posted by Archived.

If the concept of a farming simulator doesn't at least somewhat pique your interest, you might as well stop reading now. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is a game about growing up, living, and starting a family on the farm. You can expect no sugarcoating to make it sound more exciting than it is. In a deeper sense, it seems like Natsume wants to teach you more about business than actual farm work. Each day you will need to make sure your expenses aren't greater than your income, or at least know that what you are spending will yield a much greater return later on. Great, now I've made the game sound even more boring. Allow me to start over.

Imagine arising in the morning, walking outside and taking in a deep breath of the brisk morning air in Forget-Me-Not Valley. You can smell the ocean far off in the distance, and you're just taking a moment to admire the colorful trees as they sway slightly. This peaceful moment is interrupted by sudden excitement, as if you forgot it was Christmas morning. So many things may have happened overnight, and you need to check it out. You could have a fertilized egg waiting in the chicken coop for you to put in the incubator, or maybe an unfertilized egg, which could lead to a delicious morning omelet (yes, you can cook if you so desire.) Maybe that pregnant cow of yours will finally give birth to a new calf, or those tall stalks in the garden may finally have sprouted some vegetables. This is a game where the little things matter, a tribute to those with a noble "the best things in life are free" mentality. These small wonders are what keep the game exciting indefinitely. Are you completely disgusted by the thought of this game now? I thought I told you to stop reading.

Life On The Farm

A Wonderful Life boasts free roaming gameplay of a completely different kind than most of us are used to. Yes, you can roam around town freely, but there are no cars to steal and you can't shoot anybody. There are always consequences for your actions. Decide not to grow any crops, or milk your cows? You can do that if you want, but you'll wind up with no money to spend or food or eat. Just because you need to farm to survive, doesn't mean you aren't faced with a plethora of open-ended choices. The soil, the seeds, the location, it's all open for experimentation, trial and error. Of course, certain crops only grow in certain seasons and some have special soil requirements, which can all be learned by simply looking at the bag of seeds. The land for your crops is divided into grids of squares, and each square will take one seed (after tilling it with a hoe of course). Then every day each square needs to be watered. Some crops need more water then others, and especially hot days will require more watering than usual. All this work, as you can imagine, can be very tiring. Working too hard causes dizziness, and won't allow you to work as fast.

Eventually the fruit or vegetable will sprout and be ready to harvest. Now come even more choices. You can sell the raw crops at the market, keep them for yourself to eat, give them to one of the available women in town to increase your chances of marrying her, or combine with herbs or other food to cook up a delicious meal. Not everything you cook will taste good though, cooking takes a bit of experimentation. For example adding milk and two different types of fruit will make a dessert dish. Adding certain herbs or vegetables to a fish you caught, or a fresh egg, could make either a great meal, or a terrible meal. Where do eggs and milk come from you ask? Animals, of course. At the very beginning of the game you are given a single cow, which can be milked twice a day. The happier the cow, the more and better quality milk. As you earn more money you can buy more cows, different types of cows (which give different types of milk), or a bull, which can obviously lead to producing more cows without having to purchase them. Thank you, mother nature! Chickens produce eggs that can be sold, eaten or cooked; and again, if you purchase a rooster you won't likely need to buy any more chickens (unless you don't want to wait.) Sheep will yield wool, which needs to be sheared.

Accomplishing all of these chores is actually quite simple to control. X will open your inventory and let you take out a hoe, a mechanical milker, a watering can, or whatever tool you need to use. When approach the garden, the camera switches to an overhead view, and the square of soil you are aiming towards will be highlighted with a yellow outline. Then it's as simple as pressing A to use whatever tool you have equipped. The controls are on the sensitive side, so it can take a little bit of practice getting used to maneuvering in a smaller space. However, A is always context sensitive, and the control display in the top right corner of the screen will tell you what happens when you press which button. Y is an alternate context sensitive button, when more than one option is available. For example, facing the front of a cow will bring up two options. A talks to the cow, giving her needed attention and letting you know how she is feeling. Y hugs the cow, giving her extra attention.

Maintaining all these animals and crops properly and within the time given to you can be a challenging task. You need to buy feed for the chickens. You need to give each animal love and attention, or it will become sad, leading to an unproductive animal. If you neglect to feed your animal, or if they stay upset for a while they can become ill, which requires you to give them medicine. On most days you can let your animals out into the pasture, and they will feed on the tall grass on their own. However, on rainy days your animals shouldn't be outside, or they'll get pretty upset with you. If this happens you'll need to cut down some grass with you reaper, which makes fodder, and then put the fodder in troughs in the barn. This seems like more work, but it all balances out. If it rains you don't need to go out and water your crops manually, do you? Natsume has formulated an outstanding system of balance and productivity. You can do a little bit of everything, or concentrate all of your efforts on one farming aspect. The choices are up to you. However, everybody knows there's much more to life than working your tail off.

Love Sprouts Faster Than Watermelon Seeds

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Who wants to spend the rest of their life with a bunch of cows and chickens? This is where the romantic side of A Wonderful Life comes in. You need to get out there and get yourself a woman! Now it isn't just a matter of picking the girl you want and asking her to marry you. You need to get on her good side. Talk to her, find out what she likes, bring her flowers, give her gifts, etc. There are three eligible damsels in the Valley, and each possesses a unique personality. Choose wisely, because this is the woman with which you will have a child. The outcome of your child has a lot to do with your wife's personality, how much attention he receives from his father, and what friends his father has made in town. This all may seem secondary to the farming aspect because you'll be farming most of the time, but it's more important than you think. I don't want to get too poignant here, but this is a frighteningly realistic glimpse at how life can be. It's easy to get so wrapped up in making money that you forget about everything else. The game makes sure that doesn't happen, because if you fail to get married within the first year (four seasons consisting of ten gaming days each), the game is over.

Harvest Moon is not for everyone. However, open-minded gamers are in for a pleasant surprise. For some reason or another, the game is not only a ton of fun, but also very addictive. There's always something to check on, or an animal to take care of, or somebody to chat with. If the gameplay wasn't interrupted by nightfall and the inevitable requirement of sleep, it would be extremely hard to stop playing. Even if you start to get bored of the daily grind, there's always a new cut scene featuring you and your potential bride, or the addition of new gameplay elements like riding a horse, erecting a new building on your property, fishing in the river, or interacting with your son.

Another thing that keeps you coming back to the game is the scenery. Not necessarily the graphics themselves, but the surroundings within the game. The trees and grass moving in the breeze, the shady wooded paths, the calm townsfolk strolling across the bridge; all of these add to the refreshingly peaceful atmosphere. The graphics, however, are not fully up to the standard we've come to expect from the current generation of hardware. While the game doesn't exactly look bad, it's obvious that more time was spent making the game engaging and balanced than making it visually exciting. The textures, especially on the ground, are a little bland. You can see the repeating patterns in the flat grass. The textures on buildings and such aren't so much repetitive, but could have used a little more work. Character models are very cute with obvious anime flair, but are a bit simple. There are a few things about the graphics that impress. The water, especially in the river, is gorgeous. I find myself stopping every time I cross the bridge, just to stare at rippling brook. The shadow effects are very cool. The sunlight peeking through the trees as it rises in the purple morning sky is nothing short of breathtaking, and as the sun goes down you can watch the shadows of the trees get longer and stretch across the fields. Your own moving shadow is even visible as you trot along an open path approaching sunset. Don't be surprised if you step outside in the morning only to press Z and look around in first person view. The trees themselves are very nice looking, unless your standing right under one and staring directly up at it. They move realistically, and you can even spot falling leaves once in a while. In brief, the graphics are not jaw dropping, but certainly do not take anything away from the game.

This game gets an N-Philes score of B+.

As a newcomer to the Harvest Moon experience, I was floored with the almost overwhelming amount of options and choices within the game. The simple and responsive controls make it very easy to play, and the financial simulation will keep you coming back for more. As long as you're not a graphics hound, or a blood'n'guts fanatic, I would challenge you to pick up this game for a day and just try putting it down without playing through your character's entire 30 year lifespan. Harvest Moon is a gaming experience like no other.

Posted in: Reviews

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