Harvest Moon Review

Harvest Moon - Tree of Tranquility (For the Nintendo Wii System)

Rating: 10/10


Many of you may not know what Harvest Moon is. Which is odd, considering they started the series back in the NES days.

Harvest Moon is a RPG style game, but not like Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem, there is no fighting in this game. In fact, you are farming.
Yes, that's right, farming. The entire premises of the game is to have a successful ranch, with cows, chickens, crops, and horses.

In this version of Harvest Moon, you start of as a young boy or girl moving to Waffle Island, a Island that has seen a decline in its farming, and residents ever since the
Harvest Tree died some years ago, due to the Harvest Goddess being forced to leave the Island. It is your goal in the game, by having a successful farm, to bring the Harvest Goddess back and to restore the island to its former glory.

Once you get set up on the Island, you are given a ranch with a tiny house, a yard for growing crops, and a field of grass for when you eventually purchase animals.

Now in this game, things change a bit. In previous versions you were given everything off the bat, meaning that there already was a shop to purchase animals, and other essentials to the farming experience. In this game there is none of that, you can purchase seeds and grow crops, but that's it for starting off.
You must get others to come to the Island and open up the shops by growing crops, and earning enough money to the point where other people will want to come to the Island.

I know many of you may think, what the hell? Why would farming be interesting in a video game. Oddly enough it is. You have four seasons in the game, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. You can grow different crops in different seasons and eventually harvest them for money. Once you have a Coop and Farm built you can then stock them with such animals as: Cows, Horses, Goats, Sheep, Chickens, Silk Worms, Ostriches, and Ducks. Each animal creates a product, be it milk, eggs, or silk which sell for a price so you can earn more money to upgrade your house.

In this version most of that is very easy, its getting the animal "love" level through brushing and feeding high enough that it produces a higher quality product that is hard. Now I'm a video gamer that is more into it for the entertainment value, rather then the extreme difficulty of puzzles. This game appeals to me on that level.

Also, depending on which gender you play, you can get married to a eligible bachelor or bachelorette on the Island. Once you've woo'd your potential mate, you can then marry them, and have a child. Once your child grows up, your main character eventually passes away and you can then play as the child character.

The game has about a hundred different sub games that you can play, and is a very highly addictive game. Go out and buy it now!

Ciao
-Sean