Tuesday 9 January, 2007

From the moment I began playing Harvest Moon 64 I could tell that it concentrated on depth of gameplay and story as opposed to a game that would focus on visual integrity. Within the first hour of play I could tell that I would not even come close to experiencing the games full potential without a serious investment of time.
It begins with a series of prompts that ask you to name the key components of life in the world of Harvest Moon. The story is not very strong initially but as you are introduced to all the NPCs in the town, the history that led up to this point begins to unfold. I could tell that this game would also take some serious time to understand the full story.
After being introduced to everyone, you are left to your own mess of a farm. Since the game is centered around you establishing a sucessful farm, I figured I should begin with cleaning up the ranch. After getting bored with the tedious cleanup fairly quickly, I decided to explore the town. A few chats with the people in the town quickly brought the cheese of the game to view. Every person has some dumb ass expression that loosely relates to the pacing about of their designated areas. The best part of social interaction is the wide array of girls that you get to woo. All of them don't appear to be any older than eight.
Maybe with more play, the game will unravel into something a bit more engaging.

I would recommend you try your hand at farming. That is a very addictive activity. Do you think that the open end nature of Harvest Moon 64 causes it to become less of a game and more of a toy such as Sim City?

I would think of HM 64 to be a collection of games and challenges that result in an overall experience.