Customer Reviews
Farming Made Fun (spoiler alert)
This is one of those games you will either love or hate depending on how much patience you have. I loved this game! It mostly revolves around tending your farm. Other tasks include finding a wife and raising a son. Who you choose as your wife will affect your son's interests and talents. Who you make friends with in town,what toys you buy him, and what activities you do around him will also affect your son's interets.
But the best part is the farming and raising livestock! They did try to make it as realistic as possible. For instance, cows only give milk after they give birth and then they stop giving milk after a certain period of time. What you feed your animals and how often you feed them affect the quality of their milk, eggs etc. Keeping your animals happy by brushing and spending time with them also affect their output. Your animals will get sick if you keep leaving them out in the rain. Also just as in real life, you can only grow certain fruits and veggies at certain times of the year or they will go bad. I think it is this kind of realism that really attracted some people but really frustrated others.
There is LOTS of farming. To keep this from getting boring you can make hybrid plants and find things to increase the quality of your produce. You can also buy fertilizer and plow different plots of land to increase produce quality. Plant trees which take a long time to bear fruit (but are worth alot of money) or plant other fruits and veggies in the ground that grow quickly. If you give produce away or sell them to neighbors it affects how much they like you. Giving away high quality produce also affects your relationship with the ladies in your life and help you get in their good graces when it is time to propose.
Another part of the game is keeping yourself alive and well rested. Unlike in animal crossing where eating and sleeping is optional, you must eat and sleep to survive in this game. If you don't eat enough your tummy will definitely let you know. You mostly eat things from your farm and you will have to support a wife and child later on in the game. A big part of the game is cooking and finding new recipes to stop you from going hungry and keeping up your strength. You must also sleep on a regular basis or your body will get tired just like in real life. BUT you can build up your strength by using heavy tools so you don't get tired as fast.
If you liked animal crossing you will most likely love this game. Some people may still get bored because it becomes repetitious watering plants 2 to 3 times a day and taking care of animals day in and day out but its a farming game duh! What else did you expect to do?
Harvest Moon is Lacking in many ways!
I like this game a lot but I feel that there isn't enough to do.
I notice that the wedding ceremony is gone. That is what I think should be in all the games. I love the fact that there is more time to tend to your farm but what about the horse and dog races. Where is the interactivity that makes a video game a video game. I notice that they have more cut scenes than actual interactivity. I notice that there is no harvest goddess or any festivals relating to the goddess. This game is a great upgrade from the N64 version but it's missing all the fun the N64 version had. The N64 version had dog and horse races but there wasn't enough time to tend to the farm. It would also be nice if there were events like hauntings and burglery. It would also be nice if the wives didn't lose their personalities after they got married or their jobs. It would also be nice if you could play the wife every now and then as well.
The graphics are nice.
There is also a lack of tunes to choose from. You only have two. The first one is good the second one is quite boring and slow.
There are also less brides to choose from but that is a minor flaw compared to the lack of things to do and interactivity.
The fact that you also can only have a male child is rather lame. Overall this game is only worth 2 1/2 stars.
Harvest Moon AWL is awesome!
This is one of my favorite games for gamecube. It was the first Harvest Moon game that I've ever played, and I'm glad it was, because it left a really good impression.
The story is simple: you have inherited a farm, and are about to start your new life. In HM:AWL, the main purpose, I think, is to lead a succesful life, as a farmer, of course, and to raise a family. You don't just start off being a millionaire, you have to work for it. At the start of the game, you own just one cow, a dog, and several buildings. But this is just the beginning!
You can choose if you want to just raise animals and earn money off them, or if you want to grow crops and sell them for profit, or both choices! Another way to earn money is by going into the dig site every day, then selling what you find to Van, a traveling merchant.
If you love animals, then this is the game for you. There are four different types of cows that produce four different types of milk for you to buy. There are also chickens (of course). You will be given a horse. And you can buy sheep, and also you can purchase one goat. There are different animals that you can get as well. You get to name all of them! Yay!
Do you think this game sounds boring? Well, it isn't! And there's much more than planting things to it.
There are three girls that you can marry in harvest Moon A Wonderful Life. They are named Celia, Muffy, and Nami. This game it is a lot easier to get married, because you don't have rivals, and it doesn't take as long to bring up their heart level. Once you get married, you will have a son! And you get to name him! And he's really cute! And he says such cute things! And his clothes are so cute!
There are also other characters in the town that you can interact with, and befriend. Once you become friends with them, they'll give you items.
The graphics in this game are really pretty, and it's obvious that there was a lot of effort put into the game to make it look good. There isn't a lot of music, only when you're in the farm, and there you have the option of turning it off without turning off the volume. I personally like the fact that there isn't much music, only the sounds of your footsteps, or the rain, or a bird, or something else.
There aren't many things that I don't like about this game. One thing that comes to mind is that I found quite a lot of errors in what the character's say. But I don't really care about that. Another thing that I don't like so much is that there aren't many festivals, like in Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town, (the only other HM game that I have played). Like all games (for me) it got boring after a while. Every now and then I play it, but I'm not one of those people who can play for hours one end.
As I said, this is one of my favorite gamecube games. I like it because it's unique. I would say that everyone should try it, but it's definitely not for everyone.
