Harvest Moon DS

Reviewed by Kit

A midweek review? Has the world gone mad? Well, yes, but this has nothing to do with that. We're ahead on our games, so we're putting up some reviews midweek. Expect the Disgaea 2 review Sunday.

Story: The Harvest Goddess and a local witch are constantly at odds. So the witch decides to shut the goddess up, by accidentally turning her to stone. Then when she tries to fix it, the goddess is sent to another world. Not one to think things through, the witch then sends all the harvest sprites to the other world to find the goddess. Suddenly realizing that might be a bad idea, the witch sends you, a local farmer, to perform tasks to bring back the harvest sprites. These can be found by doing things such as drinking at the bar, shipping crops, or trying to escape town. Nothing exciting, but then it is a Harvest Moon game, and plot is not what they are known for. 3/5

Audio: Standard Harvest Moon sounds. Nothing spectacular, and the music gets repetitive after a while. 3/5

Graphics: Again, the game retains the standard Harvest Moon cutesy look. People all have portraits that come up when you talk to them. Nothing great, but it keeps with the Harvest Moon feel. 3/5

Gameplay: Like all Harvest Moon games, your first priority is to build up you farm by growing crops, raising animals, and selling the random native plants. You can also go mining and fishing. The first mine available has only gifts for girls in it, but if you talk to Carter at the right time he'll open up more mines. Mines that you will need to get materials for tool upgrades. Also you have to talk to Galen at the right time to getthe fishing pole. The town is laid out like the town from A Wonderful Life, and the characters are also from there. Characters from Friends of Mineral Town make appearances though. In your house you have a phone, which you use to call the stores in Mineral Town for your shopping needs. Though thereare shops in your home, you will be expected to buy a good portion of things from the Mineral Town shops. When upgrading, or building things, you can choose between four materials, fodder, wood, or stone, or gold lumber. Gold lumber is indestructible, but not worth the cost of buying. So the best things to build with is stone, which has a very low rate of being destroyed in storms. In the mine you will find monsters that you have to kill by hitting them with tools. All items stack in your rucksack, though this causes some problems. If you pull it out without separating one from the group, you might end up giving a girl all the flowers in yoru inventory. As always you can woo the women in town for a happy marriage. You can also woo the visiting women from Mineral Town if you have the GBA game in your DS, but that leads to the end of the game if you marry them. There are many other things in the game, but it would take forever to go through them all. I think this sums it up. While gameplay is simple and there are some nice ideas, there is somethign about it that doesn't work. 3/5

Replay: There really is no incentive to replay the game. If you do pick it up again, then it is because of a deep love for Harvest Moon. 2/5

Overall: The game has some interesting ideas, but when implemented, they just don't work that well. If you desperately have to play a Harvest Moon DS game then pick it up. However, I would recommend waiting for one of the other Harvest Moon games that is coming out eventually. 3/5