When most people think of video games they think of solving puzzles, killing monsters, building and exploring, or rapid button mashing fighters. What most people don’t think of is cows, crops, or marriage. At least that’s not what I thought of seventeen years ago when my Dad told me about this fun new game he was playing called Harvest Moon. I was an avid, hardcore RPG player and upon looking at the case was…kind of insulted. I’m a “slay the dragon, save the world” kind of girl and you want me to…tend livestock? Really? I agreed to try it (he had bought me a copy after all) but I was sure it was going to be lame. I was shocked and amazed when I became instantly hooked on what looks on the surface to be a farming simulation but is so much more. I’ve played all of the Harvest Moons for console systems and loved every one, but wanted one for PC. My wish has come true with Harvest Moon: Light of Hope.
The game starts with you waking up in a stranger’s house. The stranger, Jeanne, is the keeper of the Lighthouse for Beacon Town. Jeanne tells you that you can stay at the abandoned farm, gives you some basic tools, and leaves you alone. You soon discover that the island is dying and you’ll need to repair the lighthouse, by finding stone tablets, to save the island and restore it to its former glory. In order to find the tablets, you must befriend the townspeople and fill requests for them. They, in turn, will help you find the tablets.
Most of the mechanics of the previous Harvest Moon games have not changed. You must plant, water, fertilize, and harvest crops. You must feed, brush, and hug your livestock to keep them happy. You can fish in most bodies of water and cook or sell what you catch. The mine is, as it has always been, a great way to make money. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope brings three big changes, really additions, to the mechanics. The first big change is that you are no longer restricted to growing crops on your farm. Anywhere there are trees, rocks, or weeds is fair game. The second big change is that you can now mutate crops to get bigger or totally different crops. For example, if you plant a Cranberry in the dry soil on the mountain, you’ll get a Goldberry. Also, most crops can be planted in any season, but you must fertilize them every day, or they will disappear. The third big change is the fertilizer. You make fertilizer from compost you collect from your animals. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like. You scoop the animals poop (compost) and turn it into fertilizer. I really enjoyed trying to find all of the crop mutations and making the fertilizer. It gave me an added incentive to grow crops in all the possible locations.
I was impressed with the variety of the control schemes. You can play with a controller, a keyboard, or a mouse. For this review, I played entirely with the mouse and the controls were, for the most part, pretty good. Moving your character takes a little practice because you can click where you want them to go or you can drag your cursor and they’ll follow it. The mouse controls also got a little wonky when trying to hoe/plant/water more than one plot at a time. Sometimes she would move to the spot instead of performing the action.
Now, let’s talk about the graphics. Unlike the previous Harvest Moon games, Light of Hope has 2D graphics. I’m not sure why the new developer, TABOT Inc, decided that 2D graphics were a good idea; or why publisher Natsume allowed it when the other games used 3D graphics, but that’s what we’ve gotten. The 2D graphics are very well done, in my opinion, and don’t take away from my enjoyment of the game. However, if you are a long-term fan of the series and graphics are important to you, this might be a problem.
Another big problem is that there are only 4 screen resolutions offered. If you don’t play in full screen, odds are the window will be too small for your liking. The largest windowed resolution, 1366×768, felt too small to me, so I was forced to play fullscreen when I prefer to play games in windowed mode.
As a long time fan of the Harvest Moon franchise, I was extremely nervous that changing developers would ruin the game and I am pleased this is not the case. While there are some minor annoyances, if you are a fan of the franchise and can overlook the 2D graphics you will enjoy this fun, new Harvest Moon game. I definitely did.
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