Incase you dont know Harvest Moon is a game in which you take control of your very own farm and your aim is to make it successful once again. All the while your making friends in the village and attempting to woo potential brides! Sounds boring? Believe me it isnt! As soon as you pick this up and play, you know it is going to consume you! Much like the Sims or Animal Crossing but better, and older! Harvest Moon started its life back on the superb Super Nintendo and then transcending the GameBoy, Nintendo 64, Playstation and more recently the GameBoy Advance and GameCube. You could say it was the influence for both of the afforementioned games.Anyway, enough of the history lesson I think! This iteration of Harvest Moon is set in Mineral Town, believe it or not, and is based on the sublime Playstation 1 hit, Back To Nature. The graphics have been changed to a Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire style and the game suits it perfectly. You can easily tell what everything is and it all looks fantastic.
The sound is nice, nothing new to the Harvest Moon series which is good in my opinion because there was nothing wrong with the sound in the previous versions. However, whilst I was playing this on my GameBoy Player the sound did go distorted at certain points, if this is the game though I dont know, it could be my surround sound set up or my actual copy of the game. Other than that the sound is perfect.
The gameplay is fantastic. If youve played any of the previous Harvest Moons youll understand! On paper, it sounds so boring. Planting crops, watering them, feeding and grooming animals, collecting fruits from the mountains and giving presents to the girl of your dreams. But it isnt boring at all! Its addictive as hell! Its an amazing experince when your crop of sweet potatoes or pineapples are ready and your get your massive paycheck at the end of day enabling you to invest more money in you farm! You could buy another cow, sheep or chicken! Or how about paying the builder to upgrade your house or barns? Everything is in here. It is a truly fantastic package. Start playing and you wont be able to stop! Oh, that reminds me. The game doesnt end! Thats right, it doesnt end! The main aim is to get the farm popular and get married but it doesnt end there! The years keep ticking by, you have kids with your wife, you get a retirement cottage as a 50th anniversery present from her!! Now that is longevity! I dont think Ive played a longer game, except for Animal Crossing.
The controls are strange at first as you need to use a combination of buttons to do certain tasks. For example to change the tool you have selected you need to hold down the L Button and press the A Button. However, after about 10 or 20 minutes of playing the controls will be second nature.
Overall Id say this is easily one of the GameBoy Advances finest games. If you like your games to have hidden depths and last you a long time, this is easily a game for you! Also, if youve played Back To Nature on the PS1 this game has enough new features to keep even the most experienced player coming back for more! There is so much more to this game than what I mentioned here, this is just scratching the surface!
Almost forgot! It links up to the GameCube version, A Wonderful Life as well for even more features!!
Buy it! I promise you wont regret it!
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