A little bit dissapointing
The story starts off with the Harvest Goddess and the Witch Princcess in a bit of a quarrel, the witch princess then decides to make a spells that will supposedly stop her from saying "Tadaaaaa!". Unfortunatley things dont turn out that way, the Witch Princess sends the Harvest Godess to another world along with all of her harvest sprite friends, which then has you saving all of the sprites along with the Harvest Goddess by farming and getting a girlfriend.
As you can probably tell the storyline is a bit abstract as you go through the game magically finding all of these harvest sprites by doing normal farming chores (for example you find one when you water the plants 10 times in a row). The game also falls into a bit of a rut as it really doesn't continue the storyline from there.
The farming side of harvest moon DS is the same system we've all known and loved, with a few minor tweeks which TRY to keep the game from becoming stale, unfortunatley these tweeks won't necessarily have Harvest Moon veterans jumping through hoops.
However some tweeks do improve on some of the problems of the past Harvest Moon games, for example instead of scrolling from your rucksack, you now hav your entire bag's contents on the bottom screen, along with some other menues you can access using the stylis. However it is a bit tedious to constantly switch between the d pad and the stylis and selecting menues and moving around.
Probably the only one bit positive with Harvest Moon DS is the length, you could be sitting there for hours on eand, tending to your crops, animals, meeting girls, cooking food, trying to build new building etc. However this can become a bit repetitive as you practically do the same thing day in and day out.
All around however Harvest moon DS is a good gam, although it may not apeal to Harvest moon veterans, it is worth buying simply for the idea that it's handheld, just dont expect anything new from this title. I would also reccomend this game to people who loved games such as Animal crossing, as it does esencially have the same sort of vibe to it.