Harvest Moon: Sugar Village and Everyone’s Wish – Is this a decent addition to the franchise? You decide

The latest Harvest Moon game was released here in Japan for the PSP just a few days ago. From the screen shots I’ve seen of it in magazines I decided it might be worthy to pick up. Please note that this is a review of the Japanese version and probably won’t be in English for at least a year or so.

So, now that that is out of the way a little history first. I haven’t really sat down and played a Harvest Moon game since Back to Nature on the Playstation 1. I loved that game and Harvest Moon 64 so that is where I am coming from when I talk about this game. Also, this is based on just completing the spring season so far. If you want to read more about my experience with the Harvest Moon series you can read it here.

The story to this game is a lot similar to what Save the Homeland’s is from what I have heard. Some even say that this PSP version is more like a remake or an upgrade of that game. I don’t know how Save the Homeland is but I would say that this PSP Harvest Moon works well as its own game than claiming it is a remake or a face lift. So, you play this guy, Jack, which I have no idea if that is the fan made name or his official name, but you can name him whatever you want. So, as Jack you go to Sugar Village to take up your grandfather’s farm. You soon find out that you’re saving Sugar Valley from being torn down in 2 years to become an amusement park.

The manual lists some ways to save the village like saving up the 50,000G Alice asks for in compensation, discovering hidden fossils, and fishing a dream fish but these aren’t the only ways it says. I kinda like this since now I actually have an objective this time unlike just living on a farm and doing stuff. This time it’s serious business.

The game play is alright but it definitely gets repetitive after a while. I might be remembering this wrongly but it seemed like in the 64 game and the Playstation game that there was at least enough events going on from time to time that at least drew you into the game. Sugar Village doesn’t seem to have that but maybe it does but I have missing events.

The controls definitely has some issues that I have problem with. Sometimes you need to make sure you are able to give an item to a character or instead of giving it to them you might throw the item away. Usually doing this or not is dependent on maybe like one step to the right or left when facing them. So, I have found this very frustrating if you’re in a rush or not paying attention that you can 100% give the item to the character.

This problem also goes for animals when you want to talk to them for affection. You need to be in the RIGHT spot or you won’t be able to, and it can be frustrating to get into that spot since you are using the analog stick to move so you might end up running past it by a little bit.

Another major thing that I have issues with is the fact that this game might be trying to just be a little bit too real. I guess this is good and I really don’t know what I am complaining about, but it is mostly out of the fact that this is my first play through so I don’t know these things. Some of the real things I have encountered are that you get your dog by feeding random stray dogs, your dog now gets sick when left out in the rain, if you leave your wood out in the rain it will get moldy and not good to use, seeds planted in the rainy seasons have a chance of being washed away and so do already growing plants.

Also, the game tries to be difficult but in somewhat stupid ways. Now you don’t have the freedom to gather lumber as much as you want. You need to first complete a tree cutting part time job provided by Wood, the carpenter, enough times for him to allow you to use the forest privately. But you need to ask him to lead you there every time. Also, you cannot go there multiple times because Wood is a concerned carpenter and says that it ruins nature if you cut trees too much. So you need to wait. This can be frustrating at first when your axe is still at a low level because the axe uses up a TON of stamina. The good thing is that house extensions require very little wood now with 25 pieces being the most so far.

But I suppose they have done this to prevent players from perhaps advancing too far too fast. They have also made it that characters will only receive things from you once a day so no more of that mass present giving to one person. These things are actually good additions.

Gone is the shipping bin. Yeah, you heard right. There is no shipping bin this time. This time you need to complete requests placed by the citizens of Sugar Village at the various shops namely the tea house/bar and general store. Sometimes these requests are things like gather 10 herbs or you need to grow 20 potatoes to fulfill the request. I suppose this is good in a way. It mixes things up from before. In the old games, I would usually just grind use the best selling crops but this time it gives you an incentive to try growing other and perhaps lesser crops for better gains.

I’m annoyed with how spread out and seemly deserted Sugar Village is. It doesn’t even seem like a village and more like rural nothingness that requires you to walk maybe one or two screens to get to the actual building you want to get to. At least this is remedied once you receive the horse from either buying it or getting it free from completing the tasks enough times from Kazan, the livestock dealer. With the horse you can move around a lot faster. I mentioned that the town seems deserted, and it does. I guess it’s like this in every HM game where you first arrive in town and hardly anyone knows you or really gives a damn about you, but in this game it just seems I don’t see many people through out my day without having to go out of my way. At least in the older games everyone was in one place so it was a lot easier to hit the people you wanted to see as you walked in town.

And the holidays I have encountered so far are lame. Yes, I’m sorry more negative comments. The first holiday you encounter is on the 11th of Spring. It’s basically like Valentine’s Day. You give a present to someone and it helps increase their relations, and if they like you enough they’ll give you a gift too. This holiday really has no point when you first start they game though since you’re just starting out. No one knows you and you don’t know them.

There is this horse racing thing which is useless too when you’re first starting out since you don’t have a horse by that time generally.

Then the latest one I encountered is the worst of them all so far on the first of summer. On this day you basically are giving thanks to the earth. So, guess what? You can’t pick up things on the ground, use your tools on your farm, can’t fish, you can cut wood but you can’t pick up the lumber. You can feed your animals though. Honestly what is the damn point of this holiday? It ruins the point of the game. I basically just walked around the whole day thinking maybe there was an actual festival like in the past games, but I didn’t find anything. You’re probably better off just sleeping in on this day unless there is some events that happen on this day that I missed out on.

But whatever happened to the cool festivals that were really engaging, creative and fun? It got everyone in the town involved, and maybe this is another contribution for my feelings of desolation while walking around Sugar Village. It doesn’t feel like there is a community. It’s just a bunch of people living in an area some corporate people want to build on.

So after all these negative comments what good things does the game have? The graphics are nice. I haven’t played the recently released HM games but they have all looked kinda cartoony in comparion to this one on the PSP. The setting has a more realistic/anime esque graphics and not the brightly colored template of some of the ones prior to Sugar Village’s release. I also like the music since it is tolerable and fits the atmosphere of the game. A good portion of the game music in past HM games I found are intolerable after long spans of time. The music in Sugar Village is at least soothing and nothing loud and annoying. One thing that might take getting used to is the sound that comes every time you want to confirm. It is like the sound of coins or something. I don’t know if you can turn this option off but it just takes a while to get used to.

The characters are also fine, but not as seemingly memorable as past characters in the franchise. Like I said before there is no mayor so that is a downer. There is a lot of new faces in this edition to the HM series. At least for me there is. I hardly know any of the faces in this new game. The girls you can chose from to marry are your standard five girls. The tomboy, shy type, older sister type, cheerful type, and the distant/icy type. There is also a nun/sister you can try to marry who from what little I have talked to her she seems kinda laid back. Also, I bet Alice, the girl that is in Sugar Village to tear it down, is also a possibility but probably needs to be unlocked some how.

Fishing is pretty fun this time and a decent pass time from the monotonous work of the farm. This time you go through a similar thing seen in Breath of Fire 3. You choose your distance, then how deep you want to go, then when you snag a fish you have to press the O button when a growing circle gets into the area of this gray ring. Sorry, it’s hard to explain. Also, the bell is actually useful now. It brings all your animals outside and inside of the barn without any work on your part. No more having to do this manually. I remember just like not even bothering to take animals outside because of the time it takes to gather them outside and just take them back inside after only a few minutes of gameplay, which is like by the end of the day game wise.

Also, growing crops isn’t too bad since you only have a small area of space now, and not the huge area past games had provided, but to grow and water a whole lot of crops is still as tedious and annoying to do everyday.

So, is this a good addition to the franchise? I personally think so because dispite some flaws I’m enjoying it and putting up with it since I really am interested to see what else Harvest Moon: Sugar Village and Everyone’s Wish has to offer. I have only finished the first spring and am now in summer so I still have a lot to go.

The official site for Harvest Moon: Sugar Village and Everyone’s Wish is here.

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