By: K. U. Tran

K. U. Tran — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:31:25 +0000

Solid addictive game but pure time waster Like many of the reviewers that gave average scores, I’m a veteran HM player. I’ve played Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness for over fifty hours now (almost to year 5) and have been quite disappointed. It’s addictive, but it’s no fun and frustrating.Pros:1. Includes both boy and girl main characters in one game. Huge plus.2. Use of touch controls compared to HM DS. People complain about poor controls, but one just needs to get used to it. Note that you can use the D-pad/buttons to select and use the tools.3. Almost no typos and glitches. Very solid.4. Rebuilding an entire island town is a refreshing approach.5. Tool upgrading thru wonderfuls adds a nice RPG element.Cons:1. Frustrating randomness. Crops only grows depending on weather conditions, which makes sense. However, you can go a whole season without profit cause it rained too much or get a series of cloudy days.2. Cheap events and cheap festivals. The elements that really made the HM games great are neglected once again. The festivals have no activities, just participation crap. Where are the tomato fights, chicken sumo, horse racing, etc?!? There aren’t even any mountain top romance scenes.3. Mining is still no fun and is a huge time sink, and you can’t avoid it if you want to progress. Mining sucks.4. A lot of corner-cutting design decisions: several villagers have the same model, no wedding dresses/tuxedos for marriages, repetitive dialogs.5. You’re forced to socialize occasionally to prevent people from moving out or from refusing your gifts. Note that this game can reach up to 99 villagers.6. So many tiny and costly upgrades meant to just slow you down.7. Animal care mini-games are no fun and just gives you blisters.8. Harvest Sprites no longer help you with the farm work!Update – Forgot some major cons:9. Separate spouse beds…what an awkward relationship.10. Growing trees is terrible. Over a year to grow and addition 1-2 years to make the profit over just the cost of seeds.11. No mayor, no clinic, no library (would be helpful to explain all the complications), etc. Just farm stores, 2 restaurants, and 2 hotels. What a lame town.

By: K. McEvoy

K. McEvoy — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:12:50 +0000

A more challenging Harvest Moon I actually had the opportunity to play this game months ago via a Japanese copy. Past Harvest Moon games revolved around the same premise: grow crops, raise animals, fish, mine, etc.. This does too, but there are also noticeable differences. To start off with, most other games already have 90% or more of the people you interact with there. In Island of Happiness (IoH), you start off with about 4 other people. By certain dates and certain achievements more people arrive. In the past, you used ores to strengthen your tools, now you have colorful spheres called ‘wonderfuls’ that modify your tools in some very nice ways (imagine adding orange wonderfuls to your milker and receiving and extra milk for each orange wonderful attached). You will get wonderfuls for winning competitions (which can’t start until you build the East bridge. You will also be extremely exhausted (and hungry) for the first season and until you can get enough people to move to the island to open up the diner and cafe (so don’t over do working the crops). In HM IoH, there are more things to spend your hard earned money on. And sheep, before took 1 week before you could shear them again, now take only 3 days. On a down side, you cannot use the old cheat to change the weather. I’ve tried many times. It is more challenging because of the limitations early on and very little chance of actually getting married in the first 2 years – but even your rivals don’t seem too rushed to get married. Things will improve after you get the West bridge build (the East bridge has to be build first – so you are looking around $80,000 total for the first two bridges), but the West bridge will give you access to the mine and help bring in enough people to open up the diner and cafe. If you were easily bored by the second or third years of other Harvest Moons, this will give you more to do even well past the fourth or fifth years (I’m in Summer Year 4 of the Japanese version).

Comments on: Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness

By: K. U. Tran

By: K. McEvoy