 Review By: Siou Choy |
Developer: | Marvelous Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Natsume | |
| Genre: | Simulation | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Memory Card, GBA Link Cable | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Warning: those who decide to pick up Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life for the GameCube may experience a strange sensation of déjà vu. There is a very good reason for this: while most series entries revisit similar characters, situations, and settings, the latest installment to the Harvest Moon series is little more than a slightly revamped version of last year's Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. While there are a few (generally positive) differences, the main conceit is that this go around, you'll find yourself playing as a girl (hence the pre-release title of "Harvest Moon For Girls", since dropped in favor of its current and more misleading moniker - one might actually think "another wonderful life" may be an actual sequel, as opposed to the exact same game from a slightly different angle…).
OK, down to brass tacks. Just how similar are we talking here? Well, the basic story and plot are exactly the same. You start the game visiting your father's old farming partner (a very obvious nod to Japanese yakuza film legend Ken Takakura, complete with tattoos, facial features, and…well…the same last name, so duh…) to let him know you want to take over the family business. Having no real options otherwise, the aging gangsta generously agrees to let you, with the usual Harvest Moon caveat: it's up to you to make your farm a success, become friends with everyone in the village, get married and pop out a brat or two, or you get the boot. And the Midwestern-style fascism runs pretty deep around here: despite the obvious lack of choice husband material in this dump, you really don't have any choice at all - refusing to get hitched will end the game before the start of the second chapter. Talk about a shotgun wedding!
OK, less obvious change in paradigm number one: the developers removed some of the easier ways to make money from the previous game. Much like living in contemporary America, your talents and saleable materials (in this case, your seeds and produce) do not sell for half so much as they did last time, so rather than starting the game fairly early on with a large field, you have to really break ass just to (hopefully) save up enough to buy one later on in your (virtual) life. In fact, any significant amount of money you make will come from your purchase and utilization of some fairly expensive tools (animals, as opposed to education or losing big bucks interning or working entry level jobs), rather than the usual cheaply acquired and cultivated produce (can't you just feel your debt mounting already?).
Speaking of life in a hillbilly hell, let's talk about those marriage options: you get the lazy, possibly homosexual neo-Moonie Rock, grumpy Elvis wannabe turd shoveler Marlon, and 60's style folkie-hippie Gustafa. Not a hell of a lot of choice material to work with here, to say the least. And how about good ol' boy style sexism? While the other villagers in the game basically treat you the same way they treated your male counterpart last time, you find yourself referred to by such loveable, life-affirming appellations as "babe" and "girly" more often than not. And after all that, whichever of these 3 bozos you wind up jumping the broomstick with will still refuse to offer any token of help around the farm! Yeah, I'm chartering a flight to the heartland ASAP to find the village (and man) of my dreams…
One of the more appropriate add-ons this time around, given you'll be playing as a girl, is the ability to change your clothes (yay!). New clothes can be bought from Van, the traveling salesman who looks just like the lame old Wonder Woman villain (and stupid stereotype), Egg Fu. I gather the developers were hoping that the new clothes might distract you from the fact that your otherwise cute character is the proud owner of what can only be described as the world's largest feet. On that note, a mirror (which, considering the aforementioned difficulties in getting yourself a decent pair of shoes, will conveniently show you from the face up only) is included to enable you to bask in feminine vanity. Well, OK, there is a bit of a practical purpose to all this narcissism: gazing dreamily at your own reflection is the only way that you can determine if you need to get more sleep or if you've been overworking yourself. Speaking of checking on how things are going, your diary (of all places) includes a record of how your farm and animals are doing, with a health bar to let you know how much your animals like you or if they're sick. The diary also lets you keep track of what you're selling and how much you're getting for each item.
Another, somewhat equivocal change between the two versions of AWL is that tools given you by your fellow villagers (in exchange for putting up with day after day of their repetitive and boring chatter) actually seem to have a purpose this time around. While the previous game offered no apparent advantage to use of these "special" tools over the ones you started with, this time they provide a clear and obvious increase in productivity, and thus prove worth suffering your neighbors' babbling to get. Of course, nothing comes without a catch: the villagers are a lot more stingy this time, making said tools a lot harder to come by.
In the line of clear improvements over its predecessor, AWL's chapters have been shortened, making the game a bit faster going of an enterprise. Rather than each chapter ranging from one to three years, each runs for only one year. That said, it's still a tough slog through compared to earlier, more capitalistically oriented Harvest Moon entries, particularly once you're stuck with another mouth to feed. Why, you ask? Simply this: for whatever perverse reason, the developers have decided to force you to play a cross between soccer mom and stage mom. In other words, you expend just a tad too much time and energy trying to (ahem) influence the brat's career choice (oh, how Japanese of them). And how do you do this, you ask? Well, beyond browbeating the little bum, you get to spend day after day chasing down the people who you want him to grow up to be like (if anybody, considering your neighbors…), showering with them gift after gift in the hopes that your progeny will follow in their professional footsteps. This is a lot tougher than it looks (beyond an extreme strain on your patience), as you will probably have been schmoozing up to certain people to get their super duper tools (as mentioned earlier), so you'll have to do a lot of legwork to pick up the slack in influencing the kid's future otherwise…
All said and done, the few changes that have been made between Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life and its predecessor last year have been positive ones. While you're stuck paying for what essentially amounts to the exact same game, some of the more annoying portions have been shortened or smoothed over and a few minor positives have been added; the end result being a far more enjoyable game all around. On top of all that, it's nice to play as a cute girl for a change, as opposed to a fairly ugly boy (last year's AWL character design, besides being somewhat repulsive per se, struck me as reminiscent of the Bob's Big Boy mascot more than anything else. Burgers, anyone?).
Bottom Line:
At the end of the day, Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life is nothing more of a direct rehash of last year's Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, almost to the point of being a re-release of the earlier game. The only significant difference this time around is that you'll be playing as a girl. A few changes have been added to gameplay and there are a few new cutscenes, and while the changes are slight, they have in fact improved the game making it less of an annoying slog and more in line with earlier, more enjoyable entries in the Harvest Moon series. Hardcore Harvest Moon fans will probably have both games on their personal shelf, but the uninitiated are warned to stay away from last year's marked series low point in favor of it's successor. Trust me, you'll thank me for it.
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8.0 |
Posted: 2005-12-03 09:49:32 PST