A new Friends of Mineral Town, with a real disconnected feel to it..
The game starts off with you getting a real weird plot and some bizarre lines that could be chalked up to bad translations, and then being dropped on your farm, with no real idea what you're meant to be doing, unless you're a previous Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town player, which fortunately, I was. The game has previous things, such as a town, NPC's, lots of farming and upgradable tools, however I found myself going through it in a far more disconnected feel than previous games, such as the SNES and GBA versions.
The first thing I noticed was that the stylus is a pain to use, and while tossing and watering crops, its far more comfortable to just use the game pad shortcuts. The second thing that got me was that, unlike previous games, I wasn't really brought into the game, characters, town and its mechanics at a good rate. I was just tossed in and ended up spending (game) weeks trying to figure out whats what, which I found a bit annoying.
Sound:
I actually quite liked the music. It wasn't bad quality and had a nice feel to it. The sound effects aren't that fancy, however they're crisp and not too repeatitive.
Graphics:
The graphics aren't alot better, though I felt the sprites looked better than the GBA version, so I wasn't particularly dissapointed. The movement/action animations have a smoother feel to them as well.
Gameplay:
Theres a brand new town to discover, despite being given absolutely no instruction on where things are or what to be doing. The game's very similar to Friends of Mineral Town, minus a few points like crops and things are made easier to access, though give less rewarding profits. The game has a very disconnected feel to it, that ends up not drawing you into it very much. There are a few new interesting additions, such as the new cave dungeons, but they're not very interesting.
Overall:
I didn't hate the game, though I did feel it didn't do justice to the possibilities it could have had given the stylus capabilities. That, and the game leaves you a bit lost until you can pick things up yourself, faster if you're a previous harvest moon player. As mentioned before, the game also has a very disconnected feel to it.
Bigger Harvest Moon fans might get more of a kick out of this game, however I felt a bit dissapointed by it.