Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Review (no fat)

Game Description

The occupation which heralded a change from a hunter gatherer style to the present civilization, farming, occupies the pride of place in Harvest Moon - A Wonderful Life. This is a Role Playing Game where your role is to practice farming the land you have inherited and lead a successful life. This involves taking care of your animals, growing crops, and most importantly, getting married and setting up a family.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Gameplay

In Harvest Moon, the accent is on leading a happy and contented life. You have to earn enough from the farm to sustain yourself and your family. The game is played for a length of 30 years, divided into 6 periods each. Each year will have the 4 seasons - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. These periods are well-defined and delineated by events like getting married and giving birth to a child, the child growing up, etc.

Your father has bought a farm in the Forget-Me-Not valley and you inherit it after his death. Your father’s friend, Takamura, handholds you through the chores in the farm including raising crops and feeding the animals. Once this is done, you are ready to settle down to a farming life.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – Family Matters

First task, get hitched. Within the first year, marry one of 3 village girls. Each girl has her own qualities and the farmer has to choose who will be more helpful to him in running the farm. Depending on which girl is chosen, there will be changes in the outcomes. The girls are wooed and their feelings can be seen in the romantic diary which each girl keeps.

Another important feature in Harvest Moon is the emphasis on forming relationships. Depending on whether your child has been brought up well, the child may elect to stay with you or may insist on leaving the farm and going to the city. Neighbors and other people in the valley can help you out if your relationship with them is good.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – The Art called Farming

The farming tasks like growing crops and feeding animals may look mundane but there is lots of strategy involved in this. Crops like vegetables give less profit compared to fruit bearing trees, but trees need more space when they are planted. So there should be a judicious balance between trees and vegetables to maximize profit.

Also, crops can be interbred to produce healthier and more profitable varieties. When the game starts, all the seeds provided will give only ‘D’ type crops which are slightly sub-standard. If you buy costlier seeds or obtain them by interbreeding the crops, the ‘S’ type produce is got which can be sold for a higher profit in the market.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – Mooaaa!!!

Animals in the farm have their own maintenance cycles. Cows need to be milked twice a day. If any feed is missed, the cow grows weak and it cannot supply the farmer with milk. The milk from the cow can again be sold to make a profit. The buying of new animals, feed, fertilizer, seed, etc. is done through Takamura’s mail order system. The selling of produce is done through the traveling salesman, Van, who makes a twice in a season.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Controls

Keep it Simple is the mantra for controls in this game. But the controls are not very precise and may give different results at times. With these sensitive controls, sometimes you may just want to stand near a cow but will end up milking it.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Audio

The dialogs in Harvest Moon do not have any sound but take place in text boxes. The common farming sounds like cows mooing, the spades digging in dirt are well rendered but there are no special sounds apart from these. You can also buy music discs from Van the salesman, if you have the wallet to stand that.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Visuals and Graphics

The game is in 3D and is rendered without any unusual time lag. Some effects like transparent water and shadows for all the animals and characters have been produced well. But the characters are not well defined. The animals also look very similar and there is not much detail in their portrayal.

Harvest Moon - A Wonderful Life - Summing Up

If you’re sick and tired of shooting and racing games with a deterministic end, let Harvest Moon sooth your soul and bring out the real positive gameplay, build and cultivate. Intrusting concept and a worthy change up from the troll bashing genre of RPG.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Cost

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life currently retails for $29.99.