Harvest Moon GBC Game by Natsume "Serious Fun" Reviewed by Superguy3000 superguy3000@juno.com Size: 8 megabits Save: Battery-backed, 1 save slot Released: 1998 Works with: Game Boy Color specific **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: It's a farming sim from Natsume based on the wildly popular Harvest Moon for SNES! Can it carry the flaming Harvest Moon torch to the next generation of game systems? Can it make us all want to leave the dirty, pollutant-filled city and become farmers? Will Edward find out that Susie has been cheating on him and that the woman he thinks is Lulu is really just her twin sister? Oh, sorry. I got a little carried away there. **************************************************************************** Gameplay Descripion: Think Sim Farm. Okay, now forget Sim Farm exists. Good. Now imagine an RPG world. Now change that world to a farm. Add a town full of friendly people and a system of caverns full of magical Harvest Sprites under the farm. Throw in a dog or cat, cows, chickens, and a host of crops, and you've got the gist of Harvest Moon. Set in the outskirts of beautiful (um, what's the name of that town? Darn it!), well, it's beautiful anyway, Harvest Moon lets you plant any one about a dozen crops on any one of about 2500 squares, take care of four chickens, four cows, and make friends with the townspeople and the Harvest Sprites. The years consist of four seasons with 30 days each. Each day consists of 24 hours. You get the idea. Each day you must water your crops, plant more if desired, take care of your cows and chickens so they stay happy and produce more milk and eggs, and clear away all of the stumps that the Harvest Spirit (Granddaddy) left on the ranch after years of neglect. It's up to you to turn the ranch around and, of course, become rich. Basically, it's a souped up Nano pet. And a fun one it is! It kept me so hooked that I finished the first two years in a week. Believe me, that's a lot of play time. Another of the things that is cool about Harvest Moon is its emphasis on tools. Boasting a whopping 24 of them, each with its own purpose and some with upgraded forms, you'll be making plenty of trips to the shed. Perhaps the coolest feature is a built-in timer that allows you to turn the game off and let the Harvest Sprites work for you. That, my friend, is why you'd make friends with the Harvest Sprites. If you don't like that idea, you can always turn it off. Liked: Everything Hated: Nothing Rating: ***** **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: In a word, happy. In two words, very happy. From the smiles on the cows' faces after you milk them, brush them, or tell them they look fine to the cat or dog being held up by your character, the animation will make you smile as much as the cows. Another funny thing is when you use the scythe on a Harvest Sprite. They don't stay friends with you much longer after you do that. Heheheh! The attention to detail is simply astounding. Just to name a few, the plants have several stages of development, and when the lower ones are watered, they droop. The chickens walk around in random paths. The cows have three stages of development, well, four if you count the obese pregnant state that results from giving a cow a magic potion. Chickens go from egg to chick to chicken if you put an egg in the incubator. The folks at Natsume did a good job of exploiting the color abilities of GBC. You'll be amazed at how differently the farm looks from fall to winter to spring to summer, when it's raining, snowing, or dry. For example, the grass turns from green to brown in the fall and completely dies and turns sort of white in the winter. All in all, it looks a lot like Link's Awakening. Liked: Everything, especially the cows! Their eyes look like this when they're happy: ^_^ Hated: Nothing, this is one of the best looking Game Boy Color games I have ever seen. Rating: ***** **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: Sadly, the sound is apalingly mediocre. This will probably bring down the score to inaccurately low, but I must tell you about this. There is a different tune for each season. While it does an okay job of setting the mood, that's about all it does. Plus, the track starts over every single time you go through a door. I can't express how annoying this is. As for the SFX, well, no mooing or clucking really made me sad. I still can't figure out why they chose to make the sound effect for wood chopping sound like a rubber ball hitting a pool of Jell-O. Oh, how I'd like to swim in one of those. The rest are okay, but again, not anything special. I wish they'd spent a little more time on the sound. Liked: Music sounds good at first. Hated: It becomes quite annoying after the first year, and the SFX are just bad. Turn the volume | V (Down) Rating: *** **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: You're not restricted to a grid, like Pokemon, but are able to roam freely. This come in handy when the stupid chickens are blocking a portion of the path and you need to get an egg to the bin. Make sure you plant your crops in the arrangement it shows in the manual. Otherwise, you can really screw up your ranch. This is only one of the ways you can make permanent, irreversible errors that can prevent you from doing things the way you want. Sometimes it's hard to know which square you're hoeing, which can lead to the mistake described above. A clearly defined grid might have helped, but then it wouldn't look like a farm. I think the makers probably did the right thing with the grid system, but be careful what you hoe for. Also be careful what you seed and scythe for. Liked: Nice and loose control system, riding horse to get around quickly Hated: Easy to make mistakes Rating: ****1/2 **************************************************************************** Improve: Add a tool for un-hoeing an area, or make the hammer do that. Scrap the current tracks and add new ones. Make the music continue when you walk through doors. For goodness sake, add some mooing and clucking. RIYL: Sim Farm, I guess. This looks and plays nothing like it, though. RPGs. **************************************************************************** Final Words: The score does not reflect how good Harvest Moon really is. Please do not let those control and sound problems turn you off. Harvest Moon is a must-buy. As I stated earlier, I couldn't put it down for a week. Plus, I checked Best Buy and Toys 'R Us, and it was $20 at each of the stores. Sound is really the only major problem, and I know that it is most commonly the least important element to most people. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: ***** Graphics: ***** Sound/Music: *** Play Control/Game Design: ****1/2 Personal Opinion: ***** Total: 22 1/2 Final Score: 90% **************************************************************************** Currently Known Codes: None