OMG, Tim is back, nya? Rejoice, nya!
First off... yes, it's a farming sim, nya. But if Animal Crossing, a game about paying off a greedy raccoon, is good then this game is SPECTACULAR, nya. You're put in the middle of town, you choose a location for your farm and you get to work, nya. If you've never played a Harvest Moon game, it'll be a bit of a struggle at first, nya. But even if you're a vet, you're bound to see enough changes for it to be a decent challenge, nya.
At the start, you get to choose your gender, nya. That's right... NO BUYING A SEPERATE GAME JUST TO PLAY YOUR OWN GENDER (or a different one), NYA! Then you get to choose farm location and you even get to redecorate your house, nya! Wow, this game likes customization, nya. You even get to use public land for farming, nya!
Unlike previous games, you get to see your stamina meter, nya! And guess what... it'll get down to zero FAST, nya! I tilled three plots of 2X3 squares of soil and it was already below half gone, nya! Yep, the Harvest Moon heroine (and hero, I guess) in this game is far from the durable heroes of the previous games (not to mention the near-indestructable Save the Homeland hero, nya). It's rather sad, nya.
The graphical style is fairly annoying, too, nya. It looks... well... childish, nya. Not that there's anything wrong, nya... it's just that it's different, nya. Wind Waker different, nya. Of course, the style works (just like Wind Waker) but unlike Wind Waker, it could be a lot better, nya. In the older games you see the villagers as sprites and when you talk to them you get to see an anime drawing of them when they talk to you, nya. In Save the Homeland the graphical style was absolutely perfect, nya! In this game, most of them don't look very visually appealing (only Tim looks the same as he ever did, but I still think he's cuter in StH), nya... you'd be begging to see the anime pics or StH graphics, nya... well, unless you never played an HM game before in which case the graphics are nothing to complain about at all nya.
Finally, the sound, nya. I haven't encountered any memorably melodies yet, nya... and that's ironic considering the title, nya. Though there are short (tiny) clips of voices whenever you talk to anyone, nya. That's a nice touch, nya.
With all that complaining out of the way, I get to sing more praises now, nya! Like the other games in the series, you will get HOOKED, nya! This game is a waste of time in a good way... a total drain in real life but you'll enjoy every moment of it, nya! I get the feeling that even the horrors of a Harvest Moon Winter season won't bore me to death, nya! And the best part is that A LOT of the old HM characters are making appearances, nya! It's actually kinda weird, nya! Oldies like the original Ellen, Maria, and Basil along with the classic characters Ann, Doug, and Alex as well as, YES, nya! SAVE THE HOMELAND characters Bob, Kurt, Joe, Lyla, Louis, Dia, Gina, Gwen, Martha, Woody, Ronald, Katie and especially TIM, nya! And there's even a handful of original characters to boot, nya!
This game is like a Harvest Moon fan's ultimate dream, nya! The only thing that could make it absolutely perfect is if it had Save the Homeland's flawless cell-shaded graphics, nya.