Once again, you don't harvest on the moon, but you do get a decent game on the DS.
Let me tell you this, if you love the Harvest Moon games. Stop reading now. Seriously, this game is a good installment for your DS and improves on the game play from Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town.
You’ll start out just like every other Harvest Moon game. You, and I mean not a character you play as, decide to start off on the farming life. But unlike the previous installments, you don’t have most of the necessities to begin. That’s right, no lumber yard, no silo, no barnyard, nothing. You’ll have to pull all your resources together to purchase your necessities to build your farm from the ground up.
Game play wise is a bit improved. The touch screen makes managing your rucksack a bit easier. You’ll also be able to navigate maps, your diary, and a “Harvest Sprite TV” all on the bottom screen where the top screen is your wonderful little area. If by any chance you get lazy and just want to use the entire game using the stylus, the game also offers a simulated DS controller that uses a portion of the screen, all that’s missing is the Start and Select button.
Players of A Wonderful Life will instantly recognize the layout of the area and will already know most of the villagers, but for newcomers the change of pace isn’t all that bad from Mineral Town. You can even insert your Friends of Mineral Town cartridge to form relationships with the girls from that game, however if you pursue them, know that your game will end if you marry them.
Graphically it is still the same as the GBA counterpart. Seeming it’s on the DS, I was hoping for an improvement in the graphics. The sounds are also similar to the GBA counterpart. However don’t get me wrong, either way this game is good.
While playing Harvest Moon DS, it made me want to play A Wonderful Life over again. For players who have played the Gamecube and Playstation 2 counterpart, you may feel the same way, having the benefits that A Wonderful Life gave you at the start instead of the DS counterpart. But nevertheless, Harvest Moon DS gives you the same great game that fans of the Harvest Moon franchise are used to. Now if only they can remake the original Harvest Moon.