The farming simulator's first appearance on the Nintendo DS is a disaster.
Once you start up the game, you will be greeted by the regular cute little characters that you know and love. Unlike the Harvest Moon game for the GBA, "Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town", this game's town is much larger, and based more on magic. Unlike in the GBA game where you had to get down to the bottom level of the mine to get the 'Teleportation Stone', (a stone that allows the user to teleport all over town), the gamer just has to save up about 20,000 gold, and he can purchase it. This makes the game incredibly easy to navigate, but some hardcore players may call this cheating.
The bottom screen displays your rucksack, as well as some other information. It remains pretty useless for the game. One of the things you can do is teleport to a certain location on the map using the 'Teleportation Stone'. Otherwise, the screen just takes up battery life.
The game is all good until you get in about a month and suddenly it freezes. The game's screen turns blue and freezes. It may be a month, it may be a week, but the game will crap out on you. This is a widespread problem, one that Natsume, the game's publisher, has not acknowledged. This makes the game completely unplayable and frustrating due to the fact that it does not automatically save, and you will rarely remember unless you are quiting the game at the time.
Due to the problem with the cartridge and it freezing while you walk down the street, I give this game a:
3.7/10
Pros:
- Getting the 'Teleportation Stone' is a treat so early in the game.
- There are numerous characters in the town.
-The town is very large.
Cons:
- The game freezes up, losing all saved data. This is the worst con of all.