Under the lack of improvement on the visual front one finds one of the best Harvest Moon's to date!
"Don't fix something that isn't broken". That's what the developers probably thought. Instead of that, the game has several major enhancements compared to any other Harvest Moon. Such as more types of animals to take care of (Duck's, cats), easier control overall (Harvesting crops has really become a less frustrating thing to do, because of the overhaul of the backpack system, you can now store the same kind of item in one slot for about 10 times), and the biggest innovation of all :
Designing your farm.
That's right, you start this game with only your house and a stable, the rest is up to you build. You place buildings anywhere on your farm, and you really have to put some thought in where you want to place them, from what kind of material they should be made etc. There's some really interesting buildings in there, such as a factory-thingy in which you can make cheese and butter out of your milk, to a full-fledged mushroom greenhouse, in which you can tend to all kinds of mushrooms.
It's too bad that the graphic's haven't improved at all, but I can live with that, Harvest Moon never used to be about stunning graphics, and I think the sprites are made really well, the character drawing's in particular are a step up to previous Harvest Moon's.
The DS stuff that was put in isn't really great, but it also isn't the focus of the game. It basicly let's you pet your animals and order your inventory.
In short, Harvest Moon offers a familiar experience, but it has enough new features to get even a big veteran such as myself excited. A must-buy for fans of the series! (And if you have Friends of Mineral Town, a lot of familiar characters will appear, which is a nice touch if youre nostalgic :P).