Portable Farming on Nintendo DS: Touch animals in RPG Harvest Moon, US Version Out

September 21st, 2006, 20:33 Posted By: wraggster

News from Lik Sang

The Harvest Moon series has come a long way since its debut on the Super Nintendo in 1996. Over the years, virtual farmers were able to tend to their crops on a variety of systems, including GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, N64, PlayStation, PS2, GameCube and PSP. For those new to the franchise: what you are basically looking at is a life simulation title with RPG elements, where your main character's little world revolves around a farm, at which you work and interact with other members of your community, aiming at turning a small fortune in the process. Developer Natsume lets us all revisit Forget-Me-Not Valley, the setting known from the GameCube incarnation, Harvest Moon: Wonderful Life. After the Witch Princess has conjured up a prank that went too far, you are facing the task to restore peace in these familiar environments. Raise cows, sheep, chickens and ducks plus plant and grow crops and trees along the way, while attending newly included festivals. Fresh extensions, items and minigames are found in Harvest Moon DS on top!



Harvest Moon US Version for NDS is in stock and shipping within 24 hours for only US$ 39.90, eligible for our Free Shipping Worldwide promotion (like all import games at Lik-Sang). As the Nintendo DS is a region-free handheld, you will be able to play this game on any NDS system worldwide, no matter its origin; gaming bliss right out of the box!

Story and Gameplay Mechanics

The Harvest Moon storyline mostly follows a saga involving a boy bent on caring for his farm, a benevolent harvest goddess and an army of helpers known as "Harvest Sprites". In Harvest Moon DS, the before-mentioned evil witch has thrown a curse on the crop goddess, trapping her in another world. The Harvest Sprites in turn have followed the goddess into that alternate dimension and it's up to you to bring them back by, you guessed it: farming the heck out of the land. The Sprites themselves can aid with chores around the farm and some might even unlock new activities or important information. Each and every achievement, like a farm-related accomplishment (e.g. chopping so much wood, cutting so much grass), falling in love, raising a family etc. is a potential success that could bring one Sprite home. Once you discover a Harvest Sprite, you can visit their tree and request that they give you a hand with all things farming. The Sprites don't work for free, you gotta pay them with special medals which you buy or earn by beating the house in a poker minigame.



Time plays an essential role in Harvest Moon DS. Out in the sun, the hours fly. As soon as you enter a building or a mine, time will stop so that you can get your work done. 15 minutes of gameplay are converted into a day in-game. Shops will open and close, people gather at local points of interest and the weather messes with your crops and livestock as well. The NDS' twin screens are put to full use in Harvest Moon DS. View the action on the top screen, while the bottom one displays menu, comments and hints from helpful sprite characters. On the Touch screen, you can drag and drop items into various equipment slots and save or access farming data anytime by tapping icons. A neat thing is the "touch glove", which allows you to interact with your animals directly with the stylus, similar to Nintendogs. Players can pet, brush or sheer (sheep only) the animals entrusted to them. When it comes to controlling your character, you are given the choice of doing so with on-screen buttons as well, or rely on the more traditional way of using the hardware buttons.

While GameBoy Advance's Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town set the standard for the series on the go some three years ago, the updated engine, lots of fresh content and touch screen gameplay make the first NDS version a brilliant entry to fight for the title of the best of the series. One cool thing for owners of said GB Advance title or HM: More Friends of Mineral Town is that inserting one of these GBA titles into your Nintendo DS will unlock many surprises in Harvest Moon DS! It's a challenging, yet due to the mellow and fun soundtrack, also very soothing gaming experience. Get your crops in, keep your farm critters safe and look around for the love of your life; after all these years, Harvest Moon still provides us with a warm feeling and deciding to leave your virtual farm existence for longer periods might prove difficult. Harvest Moon on NDS will keep you at it for a huge stretch, it's charming and got sheep you get to boss around. An almost perfect alternative life awaits.

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