Vyse of Arcadia
09-14-2006, 01:11 AM
Well, I just picked up Harvest Moon DS and the free cow keychain that came with it for pre-ordering.
And I'm friggin' addicted all over again.
This one is set in Forget-Me-Not Valley, the same as the ambitious A Wonderful Life. And, thus far, I've enjoyed my second visit to the valley more than my first. AWL was fantastic, but it had a horrible localization and just felt...incomplete. They soon made up for that with Magical Melody, and this one is like a second apology. Forget-Me-Not Valley has grown incredibly. Loads of new characters and all kinds of good stuff for the taking. Plus, they added a building system and plots for growing things outside your farm, which were two of the many major expansions present in Magical Melody.
My biggest complaints so far are the interface, which is somewhat clunky and hard to get used to, and the graphics, which could have been on the GBA. Granted, I haven't gotten to any of the DS-only features besides the clunky menus, but I doubt milking cows with the touch screen will really be that cool.
Regardless, so far this is, like all of them, a solid and worthy addition to the Harvest Moon series. It still doesn't quite live up to Back to Nature, but then again, what does? (Well, Friends of Mineral Town, but that's pretty much an expanded GBA port of BtN...which I still don't own, sadly enough.) Now I just want to see an expanded portable version of Save the Homeland, which I still consider to be both the prettiest and weakest in the series. It has such potential, though. (Long review short, there simply wasn't much to do compaired to any of the other games.)
Oh, yeah, HMDS does throw two series firsts (that I know of, having neither played More Friends of Mineral Town nor Another Wonderful Life. Come to think of it, I missed AWL Special Edition as well. I need to get that one.) For one, it breaks the forth wall! I never expected the mayor to right out mention another Harvest Moon game...by name! (And he's the mayor of Mineral Town, to boot!) For another, the main character speaks! Crazy.
More information to follow as I become more and more hoplessly addicted to this one.
And I'm friggin' addicted all over again.
This one is set in Forget-Me-Not Valley, the same as the ambitious A Wonderful Life. And, thus far, I've enjoyed my second visit to the valley more than my first. AWL was fantastic, but it had a horrible localization and just felt...incomplete. They soon made up for that with Magical Melody, and this one is like a second apology. Forget-Me-Not Valley has grown incredibly. Loads of new characters and all kinds of good stuff for the taking. Plus, they added a building system and plots for growing things outside your farm, which were two of the many major expansions present in Magical Melody.
My biggest complaints so far are the interface, which is somewhat clunky and hard to get used to, and the graphics, which could have been on the GBA. Granted, I haven't gotten to any of the DS-only features besides the clunky menus, but I doubt milking cows with the touch screen will really be that cool.
Regardless, so far this is, like all of them, a solid and worthy addition to the Harvest Moon series. It still doesn't quite live up to Back to Nature, but then again, what does? (Well, Friends of Mineral Town, but that's pretty much an expanded GBA port of BtN...which I still don't own, sadly enough.) Now I just want to see an expanded portable version of Save the Homeland, which I still consider to be both the prettiest and weakest in the series. It has such potential, though. (Long review short, there simply wasn't much to do compaired to any of the other games.)
Oh, yeah, HMDS does throw two series firsts (that I know of, having neither played More Friends of Mineral Town nor Another Wonderful Life. Come to think of it, I missed AWL Special Edition as well. I need to get that one.) For one, it breaks the forth wall! I never expected the mayor to right out mention another Harvest Moon game...by name! (And he's the mayor of Mineral Town, to boot!) For another, the main character speaks! Crazy.
More information to follow as I become more and more hoplessly addicted to this one.