"Frenetic Farming Fun!"

Harvest Moon is one of the quirkiest games I have ever had the pleasure of playing. It ranges in extremes from immensely satisfying to insanely tedious to good old fashioned heartwarming fun.

The game has a rather threadbare plot: Your father and mother have left a rather run down and decrepit farm for two years for no particular reason and have decided to let you run the place. The very first day you arrive on the farm you go to town to meet the townsfolk. There is a livestock salesman where you can buy chickens and cows and feed and medicine for them, a shop to buy seeds like grass for animal food, tomatoes, corn etc. There is also a church, market square, pub and a few houses for people. Oh, and there are five girls who want your body something insane! Well, maybe not, but you can choose to marry one of these fine girls, more on that later.

Your farm has a large area for cows and chickens, a shed for all your tools (which can be upgraded later), a storage place for wood and a stable for your horse. Unfortunately for you, your farm has absolutely nothing in it, and is also crowded with rocks and tree stumps. Your first task is to clean it up, then head into town to buy some supplies. In spring (the season you begin the game in) you can buy potatoes and turnips, one you can sell for more but takes an extra day to grow. Grass can always be bought, at 500 gold a pouchful. Grass is a highly recommended purchase, it doesn't need water to grow and is essential to feeding your animals. Summer allows you to plant tomato and corn, both of which take quite a while to grow, but after harvesting can be harvested three days later if you continue to water them.

Animals are the cash cow of the game. Chickens produce one egg a day at 50/egg. They require 1 unit of grass/day. An egg can be incubated, 3 days later it will hatch into a baby chicken, one week afterwards it will become a full grown chicken. Cows on the other hand are a lot more difficult to handle. To get the best production out of them (350/day I believe) you must brush them and talk to them each and every day. A happy cow is a milky cow! (or something). You can magically make cows pregnant with an item from the livestock dealer, and also buy medicine for them if they get sick.

There is 5 special young women in this game, Elen the animal lover, Ann the inventor, Maria the Priest daughter, Eve the alcoholic (well, not quite..) and Nina the flower girl. Each girl likes and dislikes different items as presents, so you must figure out what the girl you wish to marry likes, and give her a present every day. At the festivals you can dance with her, spend time with her and generally make her feel special. After a while she will send you on a little quest to do something for you: once complete she will marry you if you ask.

The graphics to the game are typical snes, with rather happy little sprites bouncing around. The game is very feel-good and cutesy, but this is certainly not a bad thing for this sort of game. The controls are a tad stiff, but for the most part do their job. I found the text to be oddly translated in some parts, or grammatically incorrect, which while annoying wasn't a complete disaster.

Overall this game is great, and loads of fun. However it can become boring dealing in the mundane of a farmers life...but thats half the fun, right?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/10/01, Updated 07/31/02