Harvest Moon Friends Of Mineral Town is a surprisingly good title!
User Rating: 9.2 | Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town GBA
I recently purchased Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town for the Game Boy Advance on a whim. I was unsure of it at first, but I always wanted to own a Harvest Moon game and this is possibly a great introduction to the series. The game starts off with questions. You type your name in, D.O.B (roughly as the game as no months, instead it has seasons and you have to pick the closest one), your dog's name and your farm's name. Then the introduction is revealed through a lengthy, yet charming cut scene that involves your main character as a tiny little boy getting lost in the woods. An old farmer finds you and fortunately, finds a contact number that allows him to call your parents. He then invites you to stay at his farm for a week, for company of course. You the player get very close to the old farmer and after you leave you become pen-pals. Roll on so many years to the present and you find out the old farmer has died, leaving his farm to you in his will. Your farm needs alot of work done to it. The weeds need pulling out, boulders need to be smashed, logs to remove etc before you can actually plant any seeds or harvesting crops. Doing all those actions is easy, but the thing is you need patience with it. You will spend a good deal of time tidying up your land to begin with and it will take a while for anything decent to grow. But with hard work comes reward. The great thing about this game is it's a rewarding and fulfilling experience, if you're prepared to put the effort in. The tools available is the usual; axe for chopping wood, hoe for preparing the ground, sickle for the weeds and the watering can for, well, watering your plants. You can upgrade your tools after a certain amount of experience by visiting the blacksmith and having the right ore, experience and of course, money. You start of with a pittance. Dreams of grandeur is cut sharp when you first see the prices of the more, exotic items. To raise your funds you will need to farm. But there are other methods of raising money and it breaks up the tedious farming quite nicely. For starters, south of your farm is the mines. In here you can mine for those elusive tool upgrade ores, money and what have you. Another fun method of raising quick cash is betting on horses. You can also sell whatever you find that is knocking around in the mines, in the woods or on your daily travels. In all fairness, the game is unique and is quite unlike any other role-playing game.
What's amazing in this game is the nice attention to detail this game has, considering it's a GBA game. You can watch animals frolic, see people turn up for work late (always makes me smile), watching television in your home, reading letters from your mailbox, tending to your animals, changing seasons and weather, and a working clock, which you'll live by. It may not have the sense of a living breathing world compared to Oblivion say, but to compare this game to that game is unfair of me. What it does do nicely is make the game feel more of a believable, peaceful world to inhabit. Harvest Moon Friends Of Mineral Town is quite a big game. There's literally tons of things to see and do and it'll take quite a while to get your farm up and running smoothly. I can't possibly write down everything this game offers because this review will take to long to read. You'll want to progress in the game because you want to see your farm blossom. You'll feel a great sense of pride afterwards and it never gets boring, and that's a big achievement from a game that is primarily about farming.
All in all, Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town is an excellent role playing game for the Game Boy Advance, I would go far as to say it's one the best RPGs to get for the GBA. I recommend you buy this if you're an RPG fan, a fan of the Harvest Moon franchise, after something different, a nice relaxing break from games that is all about shooting and killing or want a great game for the GBA. It's a lovely title and sits in my GBA game collection with great pride and joy.
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