Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life

[BlueCube]

Yeah, I bet that everyone else who likes the Harvest Moon series already has this.

I'm pretty much bored, and it's only the 8th. This does not bode well for Reximol Farm. I don't know why, but it's just not as... GOOD, as the other versions of this. Usually I play 15 or so days at a time, before I can put it down - here, I'm only playing 2 or 3 days at once. I think that part of it is because I have to water my plants (which you can only plant one square at a time) twice a day, and milk/hug/brush/talk to the damn cow twice a day as well.

Of course, by this time, I'm stopping constantly, whenever I walk around, because I'm hungry. GUUU~

Does this game pick up at ALL when you're married or something?

[Raziel]

Honestly, I didn't even bother to pick this game up because the premise of it sucks so much. All of the things that made the Harvest Moon series cool were either eliminated altogether (like the festivals) or they were dumbed down and made secondary (like the farming and business aspects of the game). From what I read, the major focus was on getting married (and there are a whopping three choices to pick from) and raising your child. Just didn't peak my interest. I'll stick with Friends of Mineral Town.

[BlueCube]

It's been about a week since I started with this. I deleted the save yesterday to make room for Pikmin 2.

Here's why I hated it:

Farming sucks. It takes about 3 times as long to water one plant, 6 times if you count the fact that you have to water twice a day.. That's "balanced" by the fact that you're pretty much limited to around 27 crops or you'll pass out constantly. You don't make nearly as much money selling crops as you should. Remember how you could buy a 3x3 bag of turnips for like 100G or so? Each SINGLE seed now costs 20G, and you make a whopping 25G when it's fully grown. It's actually better to go around picking up flowers and random items and selling them to Van, the traveling salesman, than it is to farm in this farming game. Good call guys

The "Forced Wife" thing sucks. You get 3 wives, none of which have any sort of real story behind them. There's the "dumb blonde" one, the "intelligent but shy" one, and the "down-to-earth random farm girl" one. Oh boy! I chose the farm girl, myself, since you absolutely had to get a wife or the game would end. Of course, I was able to get her to 4 hearts (the minimum needed to marry" by the end of Summer, and although we were engaged soon afterwards, neither she, nor her family mentioned it except the first time you talk to them, then they're back mentioning how great the valley is.

The translation and dialog sucks. This is usually standard with Natsume, but this time it's even worse. In the fall, nearly EVERY VILLAGER says something about it being "not too hot, not too cold". They repeat this every day, and it's always not too hot, not too cold, even during a downpour/hurricane. At least the other Harvest Moon people realized it was raining and stayed inside, but these people don't. The standard "You know want I mean" types of errors are in there as well.

The sound effects suck. It's hard to explain just how bad the sound effects are. They're never the correct volume, and the villagers have their own "unique" sound that they make when you talk to them. The "dumb blonde" has the most irritating laugh ever, and you hear it every time you talk to her. The cows, at least, have more than one sound that they make when you talk to them, though they're too loud compared to the music. Also, CAN WE PLEASE GET RID OF THE FOOTFALLS? thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump

The music sucks. From the first year I played, you had the choice of two songs on the farm - a "spring" theme and a "winter" theme. These played no matter what the weather/season was, because you can change between them at any time. Of course, the winter theme is completely out of place anywhere but winter, and the spring theme is repetitive and only works well for spring. Since you don't want the winter theme playing when it's not winter, that means you have 3 seasons of "spring" music. OH JOY. I remember there being a complete lack of music in town, except when you're near the bar (or the villa when a village girl has piano lessons).

I love cows, but they suck too. Somehow, they managed to make cow care even duller by making you have to breed the cows to get milk. Of course, when you're starting out, you're not saving up for cows - you're trying to get seeds so you can earn a 5G profit on them. By winter, your cow is completely useless, and you won't be getting milk until you can save up enough to get her pregnant. Of course, you'll have to wait until she gives birth to get milk, and the first few days of milk are meant for the baby calf. You can't sell the calf, or the mother gets sad and doesn't make any milk, so you have to raise/feed that one too.

No shipping bin? That sucks. You get a dairy shipping bin, but you can only ship your eggs/milk in there. If you want to sell your crops for the "massive" amount of money you get, you'll have to go downtown on a day that Van is there, or waste the whole day attempting to sell your crops in the town.

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Useless stuff

The dog: useless - your cows/chickens are always safe.

Your "storage" areas: useless - your interdimensional knapsack can hold just about everything in the game (and could probably hold your cows if you could pick them up)

The villagers: worthless - you never have any sense of "hey that guy is cool, I'll give him a free egg to see what he says"

The milker: useless - it's faster to milk by hand, and free too

The harvest sprites: useless - there apparently no way for them to help you

Cooking: useless - You gain enough energy just by sleeping and you can get by just eating herbs on the ground. I had exactly zero recipies by the end of the first year.

----

Random points about the game

- There are, indeed, no festivals. I have no idea why.

- Fishing gets you 20-1200G per fish, so eat the small ones and sell the big ones. After getting my cow income, I would fish all day.

- Flowers are the best source of non-fishing income (great if you can't afford a rod yet). They give 10-15G a piece and there's a lot of them, even in winter. They also take no energy to get. This is opposed to the 5-20G profit you get for slaving away for days in your fields. The fall mushrooms and such give you 25-100G each.

- Field work is for suckers. Fishing/Flowers gives you more than enough for anything. I figured this out way too late.

- The horse is a godsend. Until you get the horse, getting anywhere takes a huge amount of time, and it feels like even longer because of the footfalls. Of course, you have to walk on rainy days.

- I hate this game. Get Pikmin 2 instead. It's actually worth the purchase price.

[Raziel]

Wow, that's the most scathingly negative opinion of this game that I think I've ever heard. I cannot express how glad I am that I didn't pick this clunker up. The required marriage, no festivals and pussification of the farming portions of the game were enough to deter my purchase beforehand, but I had no idea just how badly they screwed the rest of it up as well.

And you're right, Pikmin 2 is the shiz-it.

[BlueCube]

Yeah, I absolutely love the Harvest Moon series. I played every version that I know of. But this one.. no.

And I just stayed up until 3:40 in the morning playing Pikmin 2. Absolutely great. I just unlocked Challenge Mode, so I'll have to try that one out in a bit.

[Raziel]

The only HM game I've ever gotten really into was Friends of Mineral Town, which I still play pretty regularly. I've always been interested in the series though, ever since the original came out on the SNES. I was pretty psyched for AWL too, until I read few reviews on it.

I just beat the third dungeon in Awakening Wood yesterday. The one with the Emperor Bulblax at the end. I almost crapped my pants when that thing came at me. Not as tough as the one from the first game, though, which was nice because I had about 30 red Pikmin to spare and 25 yellows still alive. I sacrificed a few too many on the purple Candypop Buds.

[BlueCube]

Ahh yes, "that" dungeon. Took him down with a ton of purples.

It wasn't anywhere near as difficult as that mechanical spider with laser-guided machinegun attachments. That whole LEVEL was brutal.

Challenge mode is pretty good, you can play cooperatively. I have a bit of an issue playing with my 11 year-old brother, who promptly takes all the Pikmin and usually attacks Giant Bulborbs from the front. Real great strategy there.. Oh well.

Are you as attached to them as I am? I can't even stand to lose one in battle, even though I have like 1200+ Pikmin now.

I think there needs to be a Pikmin 2 thread, or maybe just split this one..