Platform - Nintendo DS
Rising star games
Age guide - 3+

What it's about

You, the farmer, must restore your farm to its former glory and prove your worth as a famer to the rest of the town. It's up to you how you do it. Cultivate the best crops, raise a healthy collection of livestock, harvest the crops lying around town, spend your day mining or find yourself a farmer's wife. It's up to you. Take part in local competitions to prove you have what it takes to be the best damn farmer there ever was. Choose from a selection of cute lady friends and woo them just right and you could hear the pitter patter of tiny farmer feet.

The story

The evil princess witch has banished the annoying Harvest Goddess to another dimension and it's up to you to get her back, along with all the other harvest sprites that have disappeared. Prove yourself by working hard and rebuilding the farm.

The gameplay

Mostly controlled using the game pad to go about your basic farming needs and chatting to people around town. Most of the buttons have multiple uses depending on the scenario but it's pretty simple to pick up. Equip farming tools using the stylus and from there on its a series of repetitive button presses to get the task done. Tools can also be scrolled through using the back buttons which is handy for quick farming action. Stylus can also be used to care for animals, either petting, brushing, washing or milking it's relatively simple stuff. Treat your animals just right and you'll soon have prize winning livestock. This has to be done every single day of the game world which is clock managed. When you amass a large collection of animals this can be quite annoying as that's an awful lot of petting and brushing to get through. However, find the right harvest sprites and they can be hired to lend a helping hand around the farm. It will be some time before you can start having a chance in any of the competitions held every year in the game world as you have to have a very good relationship with your animals before they have a chance of winning and this takes a long time to build up. You certainly won't be able to compete in the cooking competition until you earn enough to upgrade to a house with a kitchen. The ladies aren't easy to win over either. If you want yourself a wife, you'll have to give them presents pretty much every day before they show you one shred of affection.

Graphics

Cutesy style graphics and colourful surroundings make this a game that will appeal to the kids. Though it looks cartoony, there's a lot of detail for a DS game. The cutesy style is traditional of games in the harvest moon series but that doesn't mean it's a game just for the kids. It's fun for adults to with plenty to do. There is a great sense of achievement that comes from winning the competitions as there is a lot of effort that needs to go into it.

Pros

Interactive gaming that will keep you entertained for hours. Even after the Harvest Goddess is rescued you can continue farming to your heart's content. Unfortunately, the animals all die at some point, so there is always more work to be done. Pick up and play accessibility means you can leave it for a while and then come back to it or play it for short snippets during the day and come back to it later without worrying where your next save point is going to be.

Cons

After you purchase all of the upgrades and have been running the farm for a good few years, there isn't really anything to do that hasn't been done before. Introducing yourself to the local villagers is like watching Groundhog Day, every single day they will say the exact same thing to you and in the end you'll wonder why you bothered speaking to them in the first place.