Tag Archives: Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon 64 Review

Posted on by
Reply


I’m going to be brutally honest here folks, Harvest Moon is not one of the top games out there. In fact I would argue that this is still Nintendo’s weakest series bar none. There just isn’t anything about this title to really get me excited. As with the last one, I couldn’t even get out of the first level. The harvesting mechanic just isn’t a lot of fun and I would argue that it’s way below something like Harvestella which was ideal. That was a game where I really enjoyed each area of the game. So yeah don’t expect a lot of positives here.

The basic plot is pretty similar though. You inherit a pretty large farm in a small village so you head on over. The mayor and the townsfolk seem nice. They’re all hoping that you fit in really well here and will do everything they can to help you succeed. It’s definitely appreciated and there will even be parties, adventure, romance, and danger. That said, it is all dependent on you growing those crops really well so get to work right!? That is easier said than done and this is where the game effectively starts to end.

Right from the jump you are supposed to start watering the crops and getting things ready but the game doesn’t do much to actually prepare you for this. It just feels like you’re in a loop of asking people for help and breaking the ground to get the soil out. Nothing ever really happens and while small cutscenes happen after enough days, there isn’t a whole lot of plot progression. Mainly the problem is that I just didn’t get far enough but even with that in mind I think the game could have been more exciting.

Give me a map of the town and have more tutorials. I would say that the game is missing a few quality of life features like this that could have really made a massive difference. Without a doubt I would say that things would have improved with things like this. Even if you a full time farmer and know what you’re doing, I would bet you will still have trouble understanding what the game is asking you to do. It’s just all too vague the whole time.

The graphics aren’t bad though. You can always understand what is going on at least which is always a plus. The soundtrack is more on the unremarkable side though. I couldn’t really tell you any of the tunes at this point, they just don’t stand out. Now in terms of length the game definitely does well. This is a long game as it is and there is a ton of replay value if you enjoy it because each day is different. So the playthrough would be very long especially with no real end point.

At the end of the day though it all comes down to how fun the game is. Unfortunately the game just isn’t very fun. There’s no real reason to stick around here. It just ends up being rather unmemorable and the gameplay itself isn’t enough to hold you. I did plow the fields long enough to rank up my equipment twice but it’s not like it’s a big difference either way. It still takes an awful long amount of time to complete the field and the main character has a fatigue meter so if you work on this too much then he isn’t able to do anything else. He just starts panting and basically throws in the towel.

So now you’ve also got a stamina meter and a day/night system to worry about. Trust me when I say these are all even more net negatives. Why would you include all of these features at once? It puts you in a bit of a rush and artificially extends the game since you don’t have time to do everything at once. It means you really have to pace yourself and take your time which isn’t all that great. I wanted to just go in and have fun but the style is way too limiting.

Overall, Harvest Moon 64 doesn’t really do anything to separate itself from the original one. Yes it looks a bit newer but that’s about it. It still suffers from all of the existing issues of the first game and that really limited its overall potential. At the end of the day these are what I would consider to be design flaws right from the start so you aren’t really able to just work around them. The game would need to be redone from the ground up and as it is I would say it feels almost unplayable. Check out Harvestella instead if you really want to play a game like this.

Overall 2/10

Harvest Moon Review

Posted on by
2


I know what you’re thinking…skill issue?? Well Harvest Moon may be one of the most difficult games that I have ever played but it does so in a very artificial way that doesn’t make you feel fulfilled or satisfied at all. Seriously this is a game that will have you shaking your head the whole time because it just wasn’t meant to be this way. I was looking forward to taking names and raising a great village but in the end it wasn’t to be. Harvestella destroys this one and I can’t say I’m hyped for the next Harvest Moon titles. This one has to take the very dubious honor of being my least favorite game of all time. Granted, something had to take that spot right?

The plot involves you moving to a nearby town and now it’s time for you to start up your own farm. There’s a bit more to the story than that but that’s the general premise and you have to get to work The only problem? I never made it to my actual farm. Yeah that may sound crazy but I spent a few hours on this one and couldn’t get past the tutorial. That was brutal. It seems like you need to talk to a bunch of folks to get through but I talked to everyone and it didn’t work. I was just stuck and couldn’t press on forward. How could this happen to meeeee?

Seriously I tried pretty hard on this one. I talked to everyone many times over and I ran around the whole map so many times. Ultimately I realized there was just no getting out of this. I had a theory that maybe I needed to talk to everyone multiple times in a row because sometimes they would say something different but it still didn’t work. Unless I missed someone since I thought about that a little later in the playthrough. Then you also have the issue of the guys telling me to find my tools but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Maybe that’s what I needed?

The point though is that the game was not very clear at all. I can’t picture most people being able to solve this case at least. It really stumped me at least. You could say that I was on the back foot the whole time. Because of that it definitely does impact the score because it meant that the game ended up being very boring. Seriously I could barely last a few hours in this one because it was just so repetitive. Imagine being stuck in the tutorial in any game. It’s exactly as brutal as you’re thinking.

Now I’m not giving this game a 0 or even a 1 because it does have some redeeming qualities about it. For example I think the graphics are actually rather solid. It may not be top grade stuff but it has aged very well from the SNES era. Additionally the music is quite an peaceful enough to work out well. I like the overall town atmosphere and I can see someone having a little bit of fun here. Ultimately it will be tough to get to that fun which is the problem.

If you can’t leave the tutorial then what can you really do right? At least in a game like Casper’s Scare School you jump right into the events. The game may be over in 12 minutes but you actually got to do something. That’s not the case here…that’s not the case at all. Oh noooo!!! I’m even struggling to get this review any longer because there’s not much more to say when I ended so early into the campaign. I guess that’s a knock in itself though. This has never happened to me before. Now perhaps there was some kind of glitch at play here. I would be surprised given the positive rep for the game everywhere but I do tend to be unlucky with glitches sometimes so it does happen.

I’ll definitely play more life simulations in the future though so we’ll see if another one can do better. Animal Crossing for example will probably be added at some point and I’m interested in trying that one out. Lets face it, it should definitely beat this one for me. Ultimately Harvest Moon didn’t really do it for me but at least I will never forget it. It has a lot of fans and I know a lot of effort was put into the game so I’ll still give it that level of props at least. Throw in some action gameplay and I may make it back for one of the sequels.

Overall, Harvest Moon is really not as good as I was expecting it to be. Trust me I wasn’t expecting it to be great either way but this was really going to be a game that I could play for a long while with a big smile on my face and that just didn’t happen which was disappointing. I like the concept behind the game so I think nowadays you could pull it off a little better. That said, it’s still not really my genre of game. They can be fun on the side but I tend to prefer the more action packed titles. If you have the Switch Online you should check it out though since it’s free at that point. No real downside to checking it out.

Overall 2/10