User Reviews
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 Same Old, Same Old...? |  3.0
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by  Narphinean
from The Big City, NE, United States | Sep 9, 2008 |
THE GOOD:
~Graphics have improved, compared to earlier Harvest Moon games.
~You can raise your own child, with options new to this game.
~The Ps2 version adds a new bride, Lumina, and the ability to have a daughter.
~It's fun...? Just like any other Harvest Moon game.THE BAD:
~The graphics are good, but slow loading times and slow movement will test your patience.
~The standard HM format has not changed at all, causing this game to blend in with the rest.
~The music, while done in traditional HM style, can be very annoying and repetitive.
~The game sometimes feels like a treadmill: you keep going, but you never get anywhere.
~Secret cutscenes and items can be hard to find and unlock. SUMMARY:
Anyone who has any sort of video gaming platform probably knows about Harvest Moon, the farming simulation games that have become a big hit with gamers and non-gamers alike, especially girls. The basic idea of them all is that you can run your own farm, raise animals, plant crops, sell your wares, meet the townsfolk, and (in some renditions) marry and have a child. A Wonderful Life doesn't change much from that format, and that, I believe, is its largest failing.
You play a young man whose father has just died and left you his farm. His old friend, Takakura, comes to you and asks if you want it. Obviously, you have no choice but to accept. You are whisked away to the standard Harvest Moon farm, with the standard Harvest Moon animals and standard Harvest Moon buildings and tools. Yawn. Takakura tells you that this is your farm, it was your father's greatest dream to live on it and raise a family on it, blah, blah, blah. Then you suddenly realize: you have to be married in a year! Then you go back to sleep again. You meet the standard Harvest Moon characters (in fact, some of them have been used several times over the years), and wander the standard Harvest Moon town, which in this game is called Forget-Me-Not Valley. Yeah. We can forget this valley. Does it get any more interesting from here? No.
From here, your main tasks are to grow crops, milk your cows, get eggs from your chickens and make a name for yourself. You shower gifts on said standard Harvest Moon townspeople and the standard prospective brides, which in this game are named Nami, Muffy, Celia, and a new girl (to this platform) named Lumina. Hey, they actually look pretty... standard. False alarm. Once you marry, you have a child (on this platform, you can ACTUALLY GET A DAUGHTER! No way.) and raise them to - what else? - take over after you. Oh, or they can be a painter, scholar, athlete, or musician. Whatever.
As your day goes, you wake up in the morning (Good Morning, standard Harvest Moon farm!) and head out to your fields. Like in real life, you have many seeds to choose from, including apples, potatoes, and pumpkins (along with hybrid crops that you make). You also have to pay attention to what seasons you grow them in, because seeds grown in the wrong season just sit and rot there. If you have crops to pick, you can sell them in your little makeshift store in the middle of town, or just ship them in the shipping box and make Takakura take care of it.
You have a whole bunch of standard Harvest Moon animals to choose from, which, along with the above, include goats, sheep and cats. Depending on the animal, you have to feed, wash, brush, cuddle, milk, and talk to them to keep them happy. You also have some tools to help you with your chores, but depending on how spiffy they are, they'll drain your energy, and your farmer gets REALLY cranky when he's out of energy.
The graphics, while more detailed than ever before in a Harvest Moon game, are slow, take a long time to load, and don't get any faster. You'll really want to just run out of this Please-Forget-Me Valley when it takes ten minutes - real time - to run to the bar, have a few drinks, and run back. No one really wants to be pushing that stupid analog stick for that long, do they? You'll think you're in a very slow nightmare, only one you can't get out of - that is, until you just get fed up and turn off the game.
Audio is also something that can make you bash your head into the controller. In terms of voice acting, there is none. Well, unless you count the random giggles, grunts, and other noises of greeting (?) that the people make. Thank God for subtitles. And as for music, if you've ever listened to Harvest Moon music before, you'll know what I mean when I say you'll only be dancing along to it for about ten minutes. Then, you'll just want out. Thankfully, in this game you can change your music (via a record player in your house - how can you hear it from your fields?), or turn it off and sell the record. Do the latter, if you value your sanity.
The game, while fun for the first few days you play, quickly gets old. There's almost no variety, besides the occasional holiday or cutscene, and chores are not even as fun as they are in real life (if you can call milking a cow fun). Even your child, who says some really cute things sometimes, gets old after a while. Face it, when a character only says about five different phrases per season, how long can they stay fun?
All in all, this game is pretty ho-hum for all but the newest of Harvest Moon players, and the very most dedicated. There's no unique element, nothing that sets it apart from all the rest of the games that have come out over the years. In short, it's dull. Of course, there are those who will really love it. There are those who will really hate it. As for me, I just sort of have a standard Harvest Moon reaction: oh, another one? Any special? No? Then, let's just avoid it for now. But it's always up to you. Just remember: standard is bad. |
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| Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life review |  2.0
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by  A S R
from , , Saudi Arabia | Feb 26, 2007 |
A Wonderful Life is unlike any Harvest Moon before. Your father's lifelong dream was to be farmer. He and his best friend Takakura squirreled away funds to buy a farm in remote Forget-Me-Not Valley. Sadly, your father never lived to till his land. After his passing, you find yourself drawn to the valley to fulfill your father's wishes and escape the urban bustle. Here, you learn that Takakura scrounged together enough cash to set you up with a house, basic tools, a cow, and a small farming fund. Sure, it sounds like the typical Harvest Moon -- but your main goal isn't to save your town or your family's farm. Your goal is to lead a successful life. You need to balance your farm's needs with those of your family and social life.
A typical Harvest Moon day requires you to wake up around 5 AM, eat some sort of food, and then take care of your daily chores. This might mean moving all your chickens outside and collecting eggs, milking your cow, and watering your crops. These are things you have to take care of -- if you neglect your crops, they'll whither. If you don't take care of your animals, they'll die. What free time you have left can be split among a couple activities. You could go fishing, help the archeologists at the dig site, visit the Harvest Sprites, or visit Vesta's farm for needed seeds. Of course, the most important use of your free time early on in the game is to woo one of the town's three lovely ladies. As with prior Harvest Moon's, marriage is one of your primary goals. But, in AWL, it's a bit more urgent. Since this game revolves around raising a family, failure to marry within the first year ends your game.
But, those that manage to bribe a girl with such things as fish or watermelon to marry him, will be well on the road of Harvest Moon life. This time around, annual festivals don't break up your year, instead your 30-year life is divided into six chapters -- all equally important. They range from getting married, to having a kid, and finally seeing what your child will do with his life. Raising your child is dependent on spending time playing with him (whilst juggling farm work). The ultimate goal is for your kid to grow up into a well-adjusted adult and choose a career. Whether it's following your footsteps or heading to the city, is entirely dependent on whether you spent a lot of time with him or neglected him.
Also, your relations with the townsfolk determine your child's available careers. It's almost like you have to court them as well -- talking with them and giving gifts will improve your relations, which eventually opens up new career paths for your kids. The downside to this is that it isn't always exciting to talk to townsfolk. Most people spit out the same phrases over and over again, which makes you not want to spend any time with them. However, constant exploration will reveal links between people in the town you wouldn't have suspected -- and as the years pass people move in, move away, die, and grow up.
A Wonderful Life is all about managing your time correctly. Too much time at the farm means you're neglecting friends and family or vice versa. Finding the balance is hard, and you'll usually have to settle for a compromise. What makes things even more difficult is that Natsume has added complexity to several of the core gameplay systems so that you'll experience less "dead time."
The most noticeable change is that the town is almost entirely residential. There aren't any blacksmiths, supermarkets, chicken farms, or wineries. Instead, seeds are purchased from a rival farm. Van, the traveling salesmen, will buy items and sells rare products. Everything else, whether it's tools, housing additions, or animals, is bought by mail order through Takakura. While this adds some strategy since Van is only in town twice a season, you can always open a farmer's market in the square. Also, the mail order system eliminates the need to level up tools.
Animal care now requires more than a hug and enough money to buy the animals you need. Timing events (like birth) is extremely important. Cows can only give milk for 40 days after birth, so you have to figure out when's the right time to have your bull or miracle potion impregnate her. You can also crossbreed the different cow types (brown, star, marble, etc.) to get different kinds of milk. More steps have been added to the process too. You have to isolate the cow before it gives birth and raise the calf inside a cow hatch. On the chicken side of things, you can now own roosters. If you want running amok, you'll need roosters to fertilize the eggs.
Crops are handled in similar fashion to the other games -- you have to pay attention to season and water level. But, now you also have to worry about how fertile the soil is. Some crops won't grow in poor soil -- and fertile soil is farther from your house. You have to juggle the importance of healthier crops vs. free time. There are a few other upgrades to be found in town, like breeding your own seeds (tomamelon?) or making milk and butter in a food processing room, but most don't have a huge impact on how you play the game.
I know it sounds crazy -- why would anyone want to do these chores in videogame form? -- but you'll have fun. Just as Animal Crossing sucks you in, so will Harvest Moon's day-to-day activities. You'll want to grow your business, to take care of your animals, to meet and marry, to raise a child, and you will be mostly entertained and satisfied along the way.
While some things have been added to A Wonderful Life, other things have been lost. The most noticeable is the lack of festivals. These were what really broke up your game in previous Harvest Moon titles, and the absence is missed. AWL gives you a lot to think about. Usually you don't have enough time to get everything done before dark, but you'll always encounter days where you can't find enough things to do. There never seems to be a way to keep yourself busy all the time. There are times when you'll be absolutely sick of watering crops or you don't care what happens to your chickens. But...then you encounter a special cut scene, whether it's between you and your sweetie or you and a neighbor, that makes it all worthwhile.
The other problem is that the control is too sensitive. Most actions are context sensitive. You're trying to water the hexes on your fields and a slight tap of the analog stick will water the wrong square. If you're trying to check up on your cow, you might accidentally start milking her because you weren't standing absolutely still when you hit the action button. It can be annoying, especially when trying to clear your field and you keep explaining what a sickle is instead of cutting grass.
Game Boy Advance Connectivity does do some neat things for Harvest Moon fans. If you own Friends of Mineral Town and hook it up to A Wonderful Life, you'll get new items and hear gossip about Mineral Town. In FoMT, you can go to the library to read up on AWL's citizens. Or, in AWL, Van might have some new rare items that you wouldn't be able without the connectivity. Does it make the game? Not really. But it's a small extra for avid fans.
Graphics
A Wonderful Life is the best looking HM game. But, of course, that isn't saying much. The biggest change, an improvement in our book, is the franchise's switch to full 3D. Instead of sprites we now have polygons and believe it or not the engine Natsume has created impresses on some fronts. It draws big worlds with little slowdown. There are some added bells and whistles like transparent and reflective water, shimmering light sources and casted shadows. The camera system works well, turning foreground objects transparent so as to not block the view and the view can be manually controlled, an intuitive addition.
On the other hand, the game doesn't feature detail character models or overly crisp textures. Indeed, the models in the game, be them persons or horses, or everything in between, lack roundness and are dented by basic animation. Textures can be bland and repetitive. But, if you're willing to look past the technical aspects, you'll find a charming art style.
What's is really well done, especially since these aren't the best graphics out there, is Harvest Moon's use of light and shadow. Watching the sunrise and set or shadows (including individual leaves) stretching and contorting as the sun passes over head is truly breath taking. The trees and water also look amazing. There are also a lot of neat little touches, like snow fall, a single leaf dropping to the ground, or even random animals like lizards, raccoons, or turtles roaming around the wild bring Forget-Me-Not Valley to life.
Sound
Harvest Moon's sound fails to impress. There really isn't a lot going on. Most actions are represented graphically and all dialogs take place in text boxes. Sound is reserved primarily for a song that's endlessly looped in the background (fortunately you can buy new discs) and sound effects. These are the most spartan use of sound effects in a game. You'll hear your feet pound the ground, water pouring from your watering can, your hoe digging dirt, or your hook catching a fish, but that's practically it. It doesn't help that most effects are only two sound clips -- which makes for a lot of audio monotony.
Closing Comments
I love Harvest Moon. It's a wonderful change to actually be doing something constructive -- something that's focus is growth and nurturing rather than mindless killing. Besides for the fact that playing Harvest Moon always puts a smile on my face, I'm truly addicted to the simple play mechanics. Even the moments that were agonizingly slow (sometimes life on a farm really doesn't move fast enough) and forced me to break from the game -- I'd usually find myself booting up the GCN a few minutes later. I had to know if it was almost time for my cow to give birth.
The more you play it, the more it grows on you. It's quite easy to fall in love with the world Natsume created. Still, as much as I like the new focus on family, I'm not a big fan of needing to establish good relations with all my neighbors. There also needed to be festivals in this game -- something to break up your everyday life. As infrequent a role as festivals played -- they were a big part of Harvest Moon and I miss their absence. It'd also be nice if there were more mini- games and the tool experience system was reinstated, but the animal and marriage system upgrades (and the corresponding cut scenes, more than make up for it.
This game isn't for everyone. Some won't be able to handle its plodding pace (even some seasoned HM fans will encounter moments of boredom), but sticking with AWL is a rewarding experience. If you can't devote the needed time, you won't get much out of it. But, don't be turned away just because it's a farming simulation. It's quite endearing -- and similar to Animal Crossing. For those that like to walk on the farming side, A Wonderful Life is recommended.
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| A Disapointment, I Must Say |  2.5
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by  LiveslikeBeth
from , AL, | Feb 25, 2007 |
THE GOOD:
It's Harvest Moon; if you're a big fan of the Harvest Moon series and the PS2, then you'll want to own this game. The extras and the free-play mode make it many hours of enjoyable play.THE BAD:
Sadly, there's not a lot to do in this game besides farm. Unlike most Harvest Moon games, there aren't very many festivals, and there aren't as many people to interact with. The graphics look mediocre, and there's a drag which makes it run a lot slower than its Gamecube counterparts, which can make game-play kind of frustrating. SUMMARY:
This game is really a pretty good game, though it is very similar to Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, and Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life.
The story is that you're the son of a farmer that died long ago, and since then the farm has been taken care of by your father's friend, a man named Takakura. Takakura sends you a letter asking you if you want to run the farm, because it was your father's wish. You agree, and head to the farm, and Takakura will give you a tour of it. You unfold the rest of the story through game-play as you go along.
The objective of the first chapter is to pick a girl to marry in the village out of four, and marry her by the end of the year, while, of course, taking care of your farm as well. In Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for the Gamecube, you could only marry 3 girls: Celia, Nami, and Muffy. In this game however, Lumina was added to that list, giving you a slightly wider range of choices of personalities, especially useful if you didn't like any of the other three girls in the Gamecube version. Once you have proposed to the girl of your dreams, you will get married at the end of the year, and she will move in with you, and will have a child.
Another great thing they added to this game was that, instead of always having a boy, you get the chance of having either a boy or a girl. There really is no difference in the two besides the gender, they both act the same, but the girl will always look like you, and the boy will always look like your wife, so all the girls look the same, no matter who you marry.
Kind of like in Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life, you change your clothes, though you do not have the freedom to buy your own clothes, and your character changes his clothes once a season, and you cannot independently change his clothes whenever you like.
There was another add-on to this game besides the extra wife and the chance to have a daughter, and that was a fertilizer maker, which comes in handy when your trying to make S rank crops or trees, or when your trying to make more grass grow in your pasture.
Now about the graphics; in the Harvest Moon games (mentioned above) for the Gamecube, the graphics were very nice and very rich in detail, the games taking every advantage of the Gamecube's graphic abilities. Sadly though, when they re-made this game for the PS2, the luster of the graphics was lost, and it also made this game have a bit of a drag to it, and it was unpredictable; in some spots your character would move really, really slow, while in other spots, your character gets a big burst of speed and moves really fast, both of which can make for some really frustrating game-play.
Overall, this game is still pretty good, especially if you liked the other two Harvest Moon games for the Gamecube, but I would only recommend buying this game if you did not own a Gamecube or you could not buy one of the other games, because you'll find almost everything in here in those two games. |
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| What a Superb Game! |  4.5
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by  Country Girl
from Hickville, , Canada | Jan 25, 2007 |
Grow crops, raise animals, marry the girl of your dreams and teach your child the ways of life in this amazing farm game.
At first glance, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition for the Playstation 2 seems rather odd, and let's face it . . . cheesy. However, once you start playing, you will find yourself unable to tear your hands away from the controller until you look at the clock and realize you've spent the entire day in front of your television playing this video game. The sound is pleasant, the cute anime graphics are pleasing to the eye and the actual gameplay is simply amazing.
The story goes like this; Your father and his friend, Takakura found an old run-down farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley. It was your father's dream to fix the place up and make a successful business out of it, but he died before he got that chance. Now it's up to you to fulfill your father's dream, with the help of his old friend, Takakura of course. You have now taken on the challenge of planting the correct crops in the correct season and harvesting on time, raising and breeding animals, and choosing one of four bachelorettes to become your bride. This should mostly be completed by the end of the first year, and then your new challenge is to influence your child to become whatever it is you want them to grow up to be. This particular Harvest Moon game incorporates both the realism of farming and the joys and sorrows of life.
The three dimensional anime graphics may seem somewhat strange at first, but once you become used to the unique and funny characters, you will grow to really love and appreciate them. The people have both cartoonish and realistic qualities about them, and the scenery is very detailed and pleasant to look at. Although I find the colours to be a little dull, the attention to detail in both the characters and the scenery greatly make up for this small flaw and succeed in making gamers forget about the dull colours.
The sound in this game, although not extraordinary, is rather amusing and cute. For example, your wife's giggle makes you want to giggle as well, and the cutesy baby sounds your child makes during their younger years never fails to make you go "Awwww!" The nature sounds, such as the rushing of the waterfall and the wind blowing through the trees makes for a nice detailed touch.
The actual gameplay in Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition is superb. Everything about running your farm is amazingly realistic, unlike previous Harvest Moon games, and although this can be more frustrating than enjoyable at times, in the end you learn to appreciate it more. For example, when you breed a cow, she must be kept in an isolation fence a few days before the birth and once the calf is born, it must stay in a protective calf-hutch until it becomes bigger. The crops must be planted at certain times of the year and some crops won't grow in certain types of soil. This is much more realistic than previous Harvest Moon games. One major flaw with the gameplay in this game, however, is that it is very S...L...O...W...! Every action your character does is painstakingly, mind numbingly slooowwww. This is a drawback, because often times, gamers will try to avoid many tasks that would otherwise benefit them in the game, because of the enormous amount of time it takes to complete. However, this is the only flaw in gameplay that I can find, and some gamers like myself may be able to get past it without too much of a problem, but for gamers who like fast-paced action, this is probably not the game for you.
One nice feature of this farming simulation is the witty, unique characters. Each inhabitant of Forget-Me-Not Valley has their own personalities, likes and dislikes and family and friends. You may want to be a social butterfly and make friends with everyone, or you may be drawn to one or two particular people and become close with them. Remember, you MUST become close with the girl you want to marry in the first year if you want her to accept your proposal at the end of the summer. The many different characters in this game make the experience that much more fun and colourful. Making friends with certain people can reap endless benefits.
Overall, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition is the ultimate farming experience. The story line is entertaining, the graphics and sound are wonderfully adorable, the gameplay is mostly enjoyable and the characters are fun and inviting. Fans of virtual life games will love and appreciate this realistic, detailed farming simulation. I have a feeling the Harvest Moon series will be around for many years to come.
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3.00/5.0