Harvest Moon: Magical Melody

"Back into the Harvey groove!"

Harvest Moon has an ever-growing cult following. Ask any long-time Harvey fan, and you'll find that the most popular games in the series are the original for SNES and Harvest Moon 64. As the first two console games, it may seem like they're popular for nostalgic reasons -- but that's far from the truth. Even fans who joined with the newer games love the older games. What makes them so special? It's hard to say, but there is addictive, open-ended gameplay and a lot to discover and each. With a few great games after 64, Harvest Moon took a strange turn and started turning out games like Save the Homeland and A Wonderful Life. While they were good games in their own respect, they lost the freedom given to the player in the previous installments. Fear not, though, because the ultimate Harvest Moon experience has returned with Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Magical Melody implements a story that is a bit different from previous Harvest Moon games. No longer are you trying to bring the farm of a deceased relative back to life to rejuvenate a town and save it from being turned into pavement. This time, you are simply a traveler moving to a new town, getting to choose which land spot you move to and everything. When you arrive, you'll run into the well-known Harvest Sprites. It seems that the Harvest Goddess (yes, the purple-haired one from the other games) has turned to stone, and they need the help of the magical musical notes to save her. It's your job to collect the notes and return her to her normal form.

Now, collecting notes may seem like a burden that will hinder the old-style gameplay a lot. In reality, notes will appear once you accomplish certain tasks, such as making your first shipment, getting a full barn of animals, or proposing to the man or woman you want to marry. There is no time limit to claim the musical notes, so you can play the game how you want. You don't even have to save the Goddess if you don't want to.

For readers who don't know much about Harvest Moon or those who want to know what gameplay style this game uses, I'll explain. When you first arrive to your new home, you'll find that you're given not more that a small shack to live in and land ridden with weeds, wood, and rocks. Your job is to start from scratch and build up the farm from there -- clearing your land, tilling some soil, planting crops, fishing, foraging in the mountains, mining in the caves, eventually raising animals for produce and breeding racehorses if you want. You start out with only a few simple tools, but as you progress, you will find and buy more, and upgrade your old tools into new, more productive versions. Magical Melody gives you many options of how you can go about making money and creating the farm life of your dreams.

The game takes place on a schedule. Each day you wake up at 6 AM and the game clock rolls around, and the day is over in about 15 minutes (if you're outside; the game clock stops indoors). The calendar year is 120 days -- 30 days in four "seasons," and each day is a little different. There are many different weather conditions that can hurt or heal your progress -- rainy days will water your crops but can make your animals sick, typhoons will leave you indoors all day, and there are even cloudy and sunny weather conditions just for variation. Specific days on the calendar can be holidays, and you even have a birthday and anniversary and things.

Additions to the farming life in this version of Harvest Moon are great. Not only can you build on to your house like normal, but you can relocate it to anywhere you want. Purchase the deeds to the land all over the village, in the woods, and on the mountain! Your farm can now be anywhere you want, not just in a predetermined area. You can also build up to three houses where ever you want, and unlimited wells and windmills, too! You can also plant your crops, grass, and trees anywhere you want, as long as it is your own or public property. Want to have your own orchard? Buy up all the land in the mountain, clear away all the trees and rocks and things, and plant your fruit trees all over, with a second or third house sitting in the corner. You can even give your houses and other buildings names! Not only is the customization and freedom great for the housing outside, but the inside is now customizable, too! Buy new furniture in many different styles from the stores and arrange it in your house however you like! You're not limited to the furniture that comes with your house anymore. Don't expect the variety that comes with Animal Crossing, but for Harvest Moon, it is great! You can even get paintings and vases to decorate! Sadly, though, only the storage, cooking, TV, bed, and calendar furniture items are interactive. Don't expect to sit on your sofas or put wood in your stove heaters.

Your house isn't the only dynamic part of the village anymore. Another beloved Harvest Moon feature is the interaction with the townsfolk. Magical Melody has tons of villagers to meet and get to know. When you first meet someone, you will be distant. Keep visiting them and giving them gifts, and you will slowly warm up to them. Each of your friends has a heart meter that can fill up to 10 hearts, even the children and adults -- not just the girls anymore! Befriend someone and they may give you gifts or recipes or even invite their friends to move into the town, too, giving you more people to interact with. Not only can you gain new townspeople this way, but if your town seems suitable to a certain type of person, they may show up. If you start planting some fruit trees, someone may come into town wanting to start a vineyard. Mine for and ship a lot of ores and you may find a blacksmith in your town. Neglect a friend for too long and they may just end up leaving your town! Don't worry, though, you can get all of them back if you try hard enough.

If you like a young man or woman enough, you can fall in love and get married. If you chose to play as a boy character, you will have ten different single women as fair game, and girl characters will have ten eligible bachelors to choose from. Sadly, Natsume didn't bother translating and adding the rivalries into the American version, so you won't be able to compete with the other men or women in town for your favorite spouse. Also, if you're looking for the deep character interaction and development style from Harvest Moon 64 or Save the Homeland, you will be saddened to know that the characters are very vague and simple. They say the same thing every day depending only on their heart level, and there are not as many cutscenes and NPC interactions in this game. Either way, there are many villagers, and it is fun to discover new ones moving into your town and things.

Another disappointment with the villagers and character interaction is festival time. No longer do we have interactive or even entertaining festivals. Almost every festival consists of standing in the square, the mayor talking, and then you talking to the four or five attendees, and then returning home. The only difference is a slight change in decoration. The other type of festival is a date, but you no longer get to ask your girlfriend or boyfriend out. Now, the girl or boy who likes you the most will appear at your door and force you to go to the festival with them or no one at all, like it or not. Each date festival is almost exactly the same, and your date will say something strange and out-of-character and then you will return home. The festivals have been greatly downgraded and are probably the biggest let-down in Magical Melody.

One problem that many may see with Magical Melody right away is the graphics. There's no denying it -- the graphics aren't the best. The style is very cute and looks as if the game is made for very young children, especially girls. While it appears this way from the art alone, I can assure you this is a game for anyone. Also, the actual graphics weren't designed too well, either. The framerate is a bit low, and after playing other games and switching to this one, you may notice it. Sometimes the graphics will lag in areas where there are many people standing around at once (this only happens in a few select places, and only for a very short time, so don't worry about it hurting the game experience). The graphics are by no means horrible, though. They're not distracting or awkward, and after playing for a bit, you'll be used to them in no time. You won't have time to worry about the graphics with the amazingly entertaining gameplay, anyway.

The sounds is nice, but there are a few problems with it. As for the music and simple sound effects like menu functions and basic tools, there is no problem. A lot of the simple sound effects are great, and the music is great for the background and gives you something nice to hum along with as you play. The music for the fall is actually very appealing and soothing. Sadly, there isn't a big soundtrack, and you'll find the same music used in many places -- the music you hear in the bar at night time is the same music you hear when you go on a date for a festival. Some areas of the game were just not given music (like the island where you can go fishing).

The bad part of the sound, however, is really bad. This is the character voice. Now, the characters will not speak their lines like in Tokimeki Memorial or anything -- they just have short voice clips. When you talk to a villager, they will either make some kind of grunt or sigh, or they will shout a short greeting such as "Hi" or "Yo" at you. While it is cute when you first hear it, this quickly gets annoying, especially since some of the characters have extreme or shrill voices. Some people even like to mute their game because the voices get on their nerves so much. Personally, I think it is easy to get over the voices and ignore them, and some of them are funny and you'll want to hear them, but be warned if something like this will get on your nerves, especially when you usually talk to each person three times in a row: once to give a gift, and twice to chat. The other problem with the voices is your own character's voice. Both the boy and the girl have a few voice clips -- a happy shout of "Lucky!" for getting a musical note -- and a horrible, deafening, grunting moan for charging up a tool and using it. Each level of charge plays a new voice sample. This moaning takes a long time to play, and even after you use your tool (when the "attacking" voice sample actually overlaps with the moaning), the moaning sound effect will continue to play because it is so long. Not only is the sample long and continues playing after you've already used your tool, but it is very embarrassing and strange sounding. It's hard to describe exactly what it sounds like, but expect anyone who hears you playing to ask you what it was in disgusted confusion as soon as you use your tool -- and you'll be charging up your tools a lot, so you'll have to suffer through this painful sound over and over again each game day.

Outside of the basic gameplay, sound, and graphics, the overall organization and game functions has gotten better. Instead of a couple of menus with icons and numbers plastered everywhere, you have many menu screens with lots of information -- and a great addition of collection. Check your high scores to see how many moles you have whacked, how many levels of the mine you've been through, or how many items you've dropped and broken. Check to see which of all the recipes you have and how to cook them. There are lists of every shippable crop, ore, and other various categories so you can try to fill them up. A list of every villager showing heart levels will try to get you to invite everyone to your town and get them all to love you. There are even lists for reading every book, catching every fish, and making every color of dyed yarn. The map now shows which villagers are outside and where. The button mapping is great, and you can now zoom in and out, lock on to targets so that you don't miss with your tools, tap the tool button over and over to auto-use the tool on all nearby targets (though it is slower than doing it manually) and you can use the c-stick to scroll through your rucksack and choose items and tools as you run around the game, not using menus or lots of item swapping. There is a "rival farmer" that is also involved in the story with the Goddess. Each day, this farmer will ship things and make profits and such, and you can compare your progress to the rival to see how you are doing. There is really no point for your rival, though, and the comparison is weak and not based on really anything. Your rival will always be the opposite gender of your character, and is also the 11th option for marriage.

Another interesting addition is the mini-game mode. From the main menu, you can play various mini-games, some of which are tedious and boring, and some of which can be very fun. A good example of this is the ground-taking mini-game. You must use your hoe to till more color-coded ground than the other players. You get the strongest hoe in the game, so you can charge up and till a lot of ground at once. If you till over someone else's tilled squares, they will become yours. You can even use your hoe to bash the other players and knock them unconscious, which can lead to much hilarity and competition. An example of a boring minigame is the fishing game. You sit and wait for a fish and then the mayor tells you who caught the best one. Each mini-game can be played with up to four players, computer AI or human-controlled. You can also unlock new mini-games by performing certain tasks in the one-player main game. While the games are cute and fun, you probably would rather play Mario Party or Monkey Ball if you're looking for mini-game competition with friends. Either way, they are neat to try out, and there is no problem with some bonus fun in a game. Plus, it gives you more to unlock and collect! You can even use this mode to practice for the horse race, in which you now completely control your horse!

While there were a few disappointments in Magical Melody like the ugly voice samples, lack of a greenhouse, and watered down festivals, the game is still addictive and offers some of the best gameplay in the Harvest Moon world. As a fan that has been playing every release in this series since the original game on the SNES, I can assure you that this is a wonderful game for not only Harvest Moon fans, but any gamer to try out and play. If you love Harvest Moon, you'll rank this with the best of the games and it will quickly become one of your favorites. You can spend countless hours playing the game to create your perfect farming dream life and collect every last item and collectible in the game, or you could play it for a short time just to have fun with it. The game provides difficulty if you want it to, but players who don't need a challenge can still play it to its fullest. This is truly a great game for players of all skill levels, genders, and ages. Anyone who might have an interest will not be disappointed, so I suggest everyone get a copy of Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/06