pinkmellow

This game was often compared to Lost Valley & considered to be the better of the two farming games released that year. However despite its better quality in art and content amount being more similar to previous Harvest Moon titles I did not find it to be any more enjoyable than Lost Valley, and in fact even found it to be less so. Why? 1) The characters are bland. They all have the same personality which is tepidly nice. (Well, excepting Giorgio that is, he's....different...) 2) Competing over fields & only being able to have them a certain amount of time is stressful. I loved the Harvest Moon series for its signature peaceful and relaxing nature. Furthermore there is no real purpose to getting most of these fields anyhow as you can still grow the crops on your own field, who cares if you can grow them slightly faster? 3) I hate the vendor set up. The merchant seems to come once in a blue moon. This means I make money very very slowly and as a result the game's pace drags. I am on year 2 and still don't even have a dog! Adding to this drag you also unlock certain animals/tools/etc very slowly on a set timer so I don't have sheep or anything either and have only just recently gotten a chicken. By year 2 in Lost Valley I already had all the house upgrades, full barn and coop, and was married. This is the biggest factor to me that makes this game unlikeable. 4) The tutorial is unnecessarily long, especially when there is an option in game to select if you've played these types of games before. You should be able to skip it almost entirely. It actually took me forever to really start this game because of how long it took to finish the tutorial because I kept getting bored, setting it down and not touching it again for ages. 5) After playing with Lost Valley's very streamlined controls where you automatically use the appropriate tool based on context the constant tool switching and putting away-even with quick equip & remove (which by the way I had to look up because for some reason it ironically wasn't included in the lengthy tutorial how to do so) seems terribly clunky. 6) Am I the only HM fan who didn't miss gift giving? First of all in real life you don't befriend people by giving them the same generic object every day, you do so by talking & being friendly with them regularly, helping them out, etc. I really appreciated no longer having to look up who liked what and having to them farm up those objects to keep in big piles only to accidentally throw on the ground or hand to the wrong person when trying to give it to the recipient. Not to mention if your marriage candidate of choice likes things you can't even obtain until much further along in the game it just slows the pace down that much more. 7) In Lost Valley my role as a farmer felt important. I supplied many of the town's shopkeeps and vendors with things to sell, whereas in this game I was yet another farmer in the already farmer-filled town. Though it was a nice touch being able to see other peoples' crops grow it just took away from the charm of becoming a farmer and made it more about competition. (I have not been a fan of hm games in the past that added in rival farmers) Overall I can't give this game a higher rating because of how painfully slow paced it is. I just don't find it to be an enjoyable game and don't find anything innovative about it. The market idea to me was done much better in Grand Bazaar. The wildlife park idea was taken right out of Animal Parade. I barely play this game anymore but still play Lost Valley regularly. I hope Story of Seasons 2 is better.

Pros +Very streamlined controls +In depth crop system that allows for huge variety of crops +Entire mountain to cultivate & develop +You play direct role in town economy, you provide flowers to florist to sell, produce & food to restaurant, etc +Charming characters each w individual story line to unlock +Quests give constant purpose to each day +Cute story that has major influences on world & develops relationship w characters +Overall very simple relaxing game to pick up and play at the end of a stressful day Cons -Art quality is poor with hardly any detail, seems little effort was put in here -Very limited marriage choices -Can only have cows, sheep and chickens as livestock -No tool upgrades, limits how much you can farm (harvest sprites can do a lot of work for you if you befriend them but only work every other day and take weekends off...) -Festivals are incredibly bland (no decorations!), lacking in variety and repetitive. -Nitpicking but why have the dog involved in herding if it doesn't actually do anything? You still need the harvest sprite to move cows & sheep out of the barn (can't let chickens out for some reason) -In all but the crop system it is a huge step back from previous HM games content wise, very limited content here Summary: Lost Valley if reviewed without previous Harvest Moon games in mind is a charming little title that is relaxing and enjoyable to play. Its simplicity and ease to pick up makes it very accessible to a wide variety of gamers. However an HM veteran may feel cheated at the massive lack of content compared to previous games. I would have rated it at least a 5 as I had and continue to have a good time playing this game despite the significant downgrade in content compared to past titles, but the art is just so painfully bad with such little effort put in. Still I would recommend if you want a simple & cute farming game to pass the time with.