Harvest Moon DS popped through my letter box from Movietyme this morning and checking the forum I was suprised to find no threads about it already.
First impressions are not good. The intro is virtually identical to the GBA's Friends of Mineral Town and the traditional name/birthday/farm name entry is a bit cack handed with you tapping the letters on the touch screen to enter the names but you can't tap the 'OK' button confirm, you have to use the face buttons instead. But perhaps I'm just being fussy. The text entry sounds are also exactly the same as the GBA game. As a change from the usual HM start this game begins with the Harvest Goddess and the Witch Princess having a fight on the beach which eventually results in the Witch Princess petrifying then making the Harvest Goddess dissapear. She then sends all 101 Harvest Sprites after her leaving you to do all the farming on your own. There is a lot of conversation at the start of the game in each character you talk to's face appears on the top screen in a thin bar with a 'clink' sound effect very similar to Phoenix Wright during hectic cross examination. Set in Forget Me Not Valley (from It's A Wonderful Life) the town has exactly the same layout as the GC game, whilst your farm is a big field of rocks, trees, branches and weeds like at the start of FoMT . Graphically the game isn't much of a step up from FoMT and could easily have been done on the GBA. I've only played it for 30 minutes so far and it just been same old Harvest Moon but the ERSB rating on the back lists "Simulated Gambling" and "Use of Alcohol" so there are sure to be fun times ahead.
Also the US version contains a nice full colour manual explaining the features of the games and giving a nice little bio of all your potential wives. I anticipate the EU release will be a four page black and white quick start guide like last time.
First impressions are not good. The intro is virtually identical to the GBA's Friends of Mineral Town and the traditional name/birthday/farm name entry is a bit cack handed with you tapping the letters on the touch screen to enter the names but you can't tap the 'OK' button confirm, you have to use the face buttons instead. But perhaps I'm just being fussy. The text entry sounds are also exactly the same as the GBA game. As a change from the usual HM start this game begins with the Harvest Goddess and the Witch Princess having a fight on the beach which eventually results in the Witch Princess petrifying then making the Harvest Goddess dissapear. She then sends all 101 Harvest Sprites after her leaving you to do all the farming on your own. There is a lot of conversation at the start of the game in each character you talk to's face appears on the top screen in a thin bar with a 'clink' sound effect very similar to Phoenix Wright during hectic cross examination. Set in Forget Me Not Valley (from It's A Wonderful Life) the town has exactly the same layout as the GC game, whilst your farm is a big field of rocks, trees, branches and weeds like at the start of FoMT . Graphically the game isn't much of a step up from FoMT and could easily have been done on the GBA. I've only played it for 30 minutes so far and it just been same old Harvest Moon but the ERSB rating on the back lists "Simulated Gambling" and "Use of Alcohol" so there are sure to be fun times ahead.
Also the US version contains a nice full colour manual explaining the features of the games and giving a nice little bio of all your potential wives. I anticipate the EU release will be a four page black and white quick start guide like last time.
) Sure, it's very much like the aforementioned game, but that's pretty much what I wanted. I wanted that game again with touch screen bits tacked on, so I'm happy right now!
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