Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility

"Harvest Moon takes one step forward on it's first game for the Wii"

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is the very first Harvest Moon Wii game to be released and luckily this game ends up being worth the wait for many Harvest Moon fans like myself.

Story 8/10: The story begins as your a newcomer farmer who has decided to answer an ad for using a new farm on an island called "Waffle Town". This island is home of beautiful lands and a surprisingly small populated town of people who own shops and are just simply enjoying life. But.. life on Waffle town is not exactly great anymore as the Harvest Goddess who helps make the land beautiful is now in trouble as the people of the land have begun to lose connection to nature and the giant tree of tranquility which keeps balance of the land together has withered away. It's now up to you the newest farmer to figure out the mystery behind all of this and help Harvest Goddess and revive Waffle town to it's former beauty.

Gameplay 8/10-: So, like most Harvest Moon games you are going to be doing the most basic things to earn cash and make a living. The big things you are going to be doing in this are farming, fishing, mining, and caring for animals. With your Wii mote and nunchuck(or classic controller if you wish to use that as well) you simply control the character and are able to use any equipment with the a button and etc. You don't need to wave the remote for the hoe or sickle or anything but for fishing that's a different case. When you fish, you simply cast out with the a button but when you get a nibble you need to shake the controller to get the fish that's biting. Also another thing you need to look out for in gameplay is planting seeds, in most Harvest moon games you can plant a whole square worth with one bag, but in this game the seeds go by rows instead. Anyways, the next thing is that earning money is a huge thing in this game as you can upgrade your house, buy animals, buy furniture, and etc. Money is never really a huge problem in this game as well as good mining and farming can fix that very easily but without any money at all, you are going to end up in some tough times of affording fodder and feed for your animals, but like I said it ain't that hard and eventually you will end up with tons of cash somehow. The next thing is the animals you can obtain, in this game you get the basic cows and horses(which can also be different colors now!), but this game has a new animal which...a Ostrich. The Ostrich is basically a much faster version of the horse as it can run a whole lot faster, it can also lay ostrich eggs.

But besides money and animals, you need to also probably follow the story as well as you need to revive rainbows which can open up new places on the island and unlock new villagers who can be of great value to you if they just happen to open a shop that you need. Another feature as well in the game-play in this game is that you can also befriend wild animals that can become your pets when they reach six hearts. Some animals are actual pets while some are actual wild animals, like a bear, panda, monkey, weasel, and etc. Yet the animals in this game are really tough to befriend as a lot of them can take over two seasons to even reach the amount of hearts to live with you, but it's accomplishing none the less. And of course the game has events like any other Harvest Moon game. The events are alright but not very great, but what really makes up for them is that you can play unlockable mini games in tons of events. Some mini games will be bug catching, frog jumping, and even horse racing. Last but not least, you can woo and marry girls, and or guys(whatever gender you picked at the beginning) and make a family and eventually have a child.


Sound 8/10: The sound in this game is really nice to listen to and it's actually very catchy. I prefer mostly the fall music but overall it's nice to hear and won't hurt your eardrums thankfully.

Graphics 10/10: The graphics are a bit different..but then again..every 3d Harvest Moon for some reason has different graphics. The people now look like people and it's actually very nice looking. The graphics really fit well for the Wii and really I have no complaints.

Buy or rent?: It can go either way really. This game honestly is not for everyone as you need a whole lot of patience to make everything happen. It took me about four and a half game years to completely finish my first file. So if your a big Harvest Moon fan then go for it, but if your just entering the series I would suggest reading more about it, maybe a good rent is what you need if you plan on simply getting into the series.

But also you might want to skip this game and get "Harvest Moon: Animal Parade" which is coming out soon instead, as that's basically one huge upgrade of this game. But either way, this game is solid and I don't regret my purchase at all. Hopefully this review helped somehow.

So overall a 8/10: It ain't perfect but Harvest Moon continues to climb higher and higher of being a great game series. My only complaints for this game is that the festivals could be better and possibly more mini-games so friends can continue to join in on the fun.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/09

Game Release: Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility (US, 09/30/08)