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Harvest Moon seems like one of those series which, like Pok�mon, hit folks pretty early
and made a lasting impression, from which any departure - or rather, the addition of
some five hundredish new creatures - seems like sacrilege. You run a farm, you plant
crops, you take care of animals, you fall in love. That�s all Harvest Moon is quote
unquote �supposed� to be; everything else can go over to the Rune Factory and be an
RPG or whatever. I want my watering can, my axe for choppin� lumber, and some seeds,
and I�m gonna turn around grandpa�s� wait, it�s not even Grandpa�s farm? You
say I�m here to help develop this island into a resort destination? That doesn�t
seem very Harvest Moon, man. That�s, like, SimCity with agriculture.
But as it turns out, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility manages to cultivate a crop-growin�,
cattle-rustlin� Harvest Moon at its core, and just kinda builds the superfluous stuff
around the outside. After arriving on the island and staying with a couple local farmers
just to learn the tricks of the trade (read: tutorials), you�re off to turn the earth
yourself, in the beautiful Caramel River region (just like in the brochure!) Wait. Caramel
River� Waffle Town� Maple Lake� Ganache Mine� I get it, the entire game is there
to make you hungry! And maybe you�ll sit there and play it longer if there�s food
*** implied, I don�t know. They need something to keep you hooked, because - like most simulation
games - this is gonna take quite a while. While time goes by fairly quickly (10 in-game
minutes every 5 Earth-seconds), you�re going to be packing your days full of meeting folks,
picking up part-time jobs, tilling soil, planting potatoes, felling trees, breaking rocks, turning
those trees and rocks into furniture and buildings, buying cooking implements, making dinner,
�nother part-time job, quick soak in the hot springs to relieve all the stress and
tension of the workaday world, get home, stir the sauce, deliver these guns to Jimmy, get
the stuff ready for your Pittsburgh guys� Really, all the meticulous time-management
and action-efficiency that the series is famous for. And they wonder why our generation likes
Agricola so much.
But every once in a while, your plow hits a rock and everything goes off-kilter. (Wow.
Straining for these metaphors now.) While the early part of the game feels a bit too
directed for comfort - your standard �Talk to everyone in the town to proceed� quest
- it leaves out a number of important island locales, and the map you�re given barely
suffices (unless you absolutely positively need to know where that turtle is at all times.)
Further, we know this is a fairly advanced society, since the doctor�s got a number
of X-Rays at his desk and you can purchase not only a TV but a freakin� TV Guide�
yet apparently no one on the island has heard of a bicycle or any other sort of quick transport,
meaning you�re hoofing everywhere and anywhere you want to go. Targeting your actions can
be a bit of a crapshoot, potentially leading to your watering can clipping THROUGH the
crops you�re aiming to water, yet registering the �watering� action on some other square
entirely. Oh, and the English dubbing sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom stall,
next to a guy who REALLY shouldn�t have had that fifth dozen wings last night. But
these gripes are small potatoes - get it? - in the face of what is otherwise a really
solid Harvest Moon experience. It does everything you expect it to and then some, giving you
about a bajillion ways to get from Point A to a functional farm to a happy family, all
while crafting a quilt out of rainbows for the harvest goddess or some other supernatural
nonsense that has nothing to do with actual agriculture. And then it gives you the option
to NewGame+ as your own child. Farming, man. It never ends.