Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

"Thats right Natsume. Just butcher the franchise a little bit more."

If there is one thing I hate, it inflated rating systems. I personally love /5 rating systems because they force people to put the rating into "Don't Even Think About Buying It", "Not Recommended", "If You Like The Franchise Then Go Ahead", "Buy It Regardless", and lastly (this being the 5/5) "If You Don't Buy It Then Be Warned, Because You've Just Made The Greatest Mistake Of Your Life". I see so many people who are just downright giddy about a game, then they go and right a review with an inflated rating and everyone goes "OMGOMG g3T t3H GAME!!!!". Though Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town can be appreciated, it is NOT for everyone, and it certainly isn't that good of a game. Here is my review of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, for the GameBoy Advance.

Story(line):
As a child you spend a while with an old man on his farm. You give purpose to his life, and in return he brings joy to yours. While staying with the man you meet a young girl who you spend most of your time with. Eventually you and your folks move back to the city, and leave the girl and the old man for a really, really long time. You two continue to write to each other, however you never see each other again.

The story picks up right after the old man dies. In his will he has left EVERYTHING to you, and he wants you to get his farm and farm it in order for you to live a full life like he did. You arrive and soon meet the many members of the town that is north of your farm. This includes multiple young ladies. You are not sure which lady is the girl that you spent your summer with a long time ago, however you are pretty sure that it's one of them.

This is where the story ends. You see, the rest of the story are just small events that occur when you initiate them. Some of them are guaranteed to happen, while others are completely random, while others require you to do very specific things. You determine your life, and the outcome of your farm, and for the most part nothing is left to fate.

Sound:
The music is strangely reminiscent of the original SNES Harvest Moon, which is a damn good thing. However, in my opinion it just doesn't sound enough like the original to really make it worth listening to. Eventually the sound gets so repetitive that you just turn the sound off and don't turn it on again. It is times like this when you wish they'd done just a little better job on the sound and music.

Graphics:
Once again, the graphics are a slight nod of the head back to the old SNES graphics, however once again they are not enough like the SNES graphics to please me. The SNES graphics were astoundingly perfected, while Friends of Mineral Town just looks awkward. They have some nice effects, but in the end you aren't getting anything special.

Gameplay:
The original SNES game had the best thing that you could have in a farming game. Infinite days. In the original game time did not wrap around. At 6PM the clock stopped, meaning that if you were committed to the game you could complete daunting tasks and time consuming jobs in a single night! However Natsume did not feel the same way that I do, and instead they have put wrap around nights into almost every other Harvest Moon game. This causes a huge sense of annoyance because you are extremely rushed into doing things, instead of being free like your used to be.

The farm has also became harder to deal with. You have a very limited amount of space with which to plant your crops in. You cannot expand around every nook and cranny like your could in the original game. Instead you are forced to plant in a tight area. This ruins the feel of the game immensely.

Of course, marriage is still in the game. You can pick from five of the town's young girls. It is kind of strange, though, seeing as you and all five of the girls resemble people of about the age of eleven. But anyways, you can marry someone, which is one of the goals of the game. Unfortunately marriage requires you to multitask even more, which really clutters up your time.

The multitasking gets even more complex, though, when you consider Natsume's new thing, the Gnomes! The gnomes are a bunch of little people resembling the seven dwarves. They run around doing stuff, and as you give them presents to make them like you more they will help you farm your crops. Having them do this gives you a lot more free time to focus on other things, however trying to get their happiness high enough, and trying to keep it that way, becomes difficult and annoying.

Friends of Mineral Town isn't really that bad, though. There are a lot of different plants you can grow, and a LOT to do (though sometimes it gets a little repetitive). This game has tremendous potential if you are willing to put a heck of a lot of time into it, however if not I'd recommend something like Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town also includes GBA-><-GCN connection, allowing you to connect with Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life.

Though Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town could have been a lot better if only Natsume had stuck to their roots, it's still an average game. And an average game gets an average score.

5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/05