tekt5
NazcaBeer Spokesman
Hello all. I've decided to post my Harvest Moon review up here so the I can get a little more feed back on it. It was origanally in DLWD Issue #2 which can be found here I hope to eventually create a webpage with all my reviews on it but for now GP32x will do fine. Enjoy and PLEASE leave comments about anything related to this review!! 
Waking up in the morning, you glance over at your clock. One hand points up while the smaller one points down. 6:00. Like every morning, you get up eat a nice sized rice-ball (yum) and check the weather on the TV. As you open the front door, you see early birds looking for food. Off in the distance you hear your dog barking at that fox who always manages to knock down your fence. You walk over to your tool shed ready to face the day.
The World of Harvest Moon:
Many games dive you into worlds and situations that most likely in real life, you’d like to be in. Harvest Moon isn’t quite that way. In fact, it’s not that way at all. I mean come on, not many people honestly want to be farmers. Especially not the stereotypical gamer, who wants nothing to do with any thing involving any form of physical labor. Yet, somehow those developers at Natsume have made the world of Harvest Moon a very interesting and fun place to “live in”. The story starts out with your parents telling you your grandpa has recently died. You then decide to go and take over your grandpa’s ranch. Not interesting enough for you? Well, while the story may not be anywhere near as complex or entertaining as the Final Fantasy series, it is easily enough to get the game moving in the right direction. Plus, along the way, various special events will keep both the game and the story from getting overly repetitive. Yes that’s right, I said it. This game IS repetitive. So if your not one to be liking repetitive things, don’t play it. Although it isn’t too bad. Anyway, I’ll stop getting ahead of myself.
My History With Harvest Moon:
I was first introduced to Harvest Moon when my friend bought the first mono Game boy Version. As soon as I started playing it I immediately fell in love with it. Which is saying something seeing as the GB version was pretty much just a de-colorized, dumbed down port of the SNES original. Anyway, after playing the GB version I eventually went out and got the GBC version. It was really just a colorized version of the GB port, but it was still enough to keep the fire going. A few months later I discovered the holy grail of computers: EMULATION! I quickly discovered to my surprise, that there indeed was a prequel to that beloved GBC Cartridge; and it was Harvest Moon, and it was great. I played it for hours everyday. I loved it even though at the time my computer ran SNES9x much worse than the GP32(hence why you never see me complaining about the quality of our SNES emu). As time went on many sequels were released and I played almost every one of them. But alas, the original was still my favorite.
Overview of the Game:
As you awake on your first day at your newly inherited ranch, you are greeted by the friendly shipping man. He goes on to ask you your name and so on and so forth. He then gives you a ride into town so that you can meet all the friendly townsfolk you will be interacting with over the next two and a half years of your virtual life. You will also get to meet four of the five girls you can woo and marry. After you speak with EVERYONE in the town you can go back to the shipping clerk and go back to your ranch (NOTE: you can not buy anything on your first visit in town. Also when talking to shop owners talk to them both behind of and in front of the counter.) When your finally done with the slow beginning of the game the real fun starts. Here you have a few different options of what to do. You can go pick flowers and berries in the mountain and try to woo a chick or sell then respectively. Or you can go to the flower shop and buy a few bags of seed to plant in your overgrown fields. The biggest thing to remember here is that after two and a half years your parents will come visit and the game ends. You get a rating an see one of many multiple endings. After that the game is over and you must start again. To give you an idea of how long the game lasts I'll tell you this. There are four seasons/months in the game: spring, summer, fall, and winter. In each month there are 30 days. A day usually lasts anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes. The game's seasons play a big role in how you'll make money. For example, in winter no plants can grow in your fields so the best way to make money is by raising livestock. As you move along in the game more options will become available. You can eventually get married and raise a couple of kids. You can raise a horse and race him at the yearly horse races. All of your tools are upgradeable allowing you to do more work faster with less energy involved. Festivals go down in the town square every few weeks giving you a chance to do a little something with your lover, from dancing with her to buying her that special perfume or drink to spending a night at the hot springs or atop the mountain gazing at the stars. There are many more surprises hidden deep in the game such as the power berries. These fruits add a little RPG element into the game. There are 10 of them hidden all through out the game but I won't say where. Each power berry gives you a little more overall stamina. This allows you to work longer in a day. Every time you do something energy involving you loose a little of your daily stamina. You have no meter or anything showing you how much you have left but you'll be able to tell by different things your character does such as wiping his brow or sitting down for a little breather to passing out. If you really need to get more work done than your stamina allows then there are a few things you can do to temporarily raise it. You can go for a dip in the hot springs or buy some food from the town restaurant. There are a lot of other fun things to do in this game but I don't want to ruin anymore of the fun or surprises for all you potential players out there.
Graphics and Sound:
Graphically I'd say that this game is a little above your average SNES RPG. The isometric view is perfectly suited for this game. The sprites are fairly large and look very nice. The colors are bright and vibrant and change to match the mood of the said seasons beautifully. In spring you’ll see flowers in bloom. In summer you’ll get the bright green grass. In fall you’ll see leaves on the ground and many shades of brown. And in winter you’ll that relaxing mix of whites and grays. The sounds are perfect. Sounding realistic enough to make the experience fun but unrealistic enough to remember that this game isn't a farming simulation. The klunk of an axe splintering wood echoes off into the quite night sounds great. The only two sounds that I find at all annoying are the sounds of your feet scuffing the ground as you run and the sound of rain pouring down. These really only get annoying because you hear them repeated so much. The music in this game is hard to describe. You either love it or hate it. Personally I enjoy it and find myself humming it often. I even figured out how to play the town music on the piano. I know, I'm a nerd.
How it runs on the GP32:
OK, I know what your thinking now. You’re thinking "wow this sounds great but how well does it work on our GP32's?" Well, I'm here to tell you just how well it does work. I still have yet to complete the game yet on my GP32 due to lack of time but as of so far I have experienced only one minor glitch involving the transparency issues in OPENSNES9xGP (I use version 0.2). When it rains, all you see is rain, nothing else at all. Luckily for us this is easily fixed by turning off one of the background layers. I normally play it with two different settings. Both are at 166 MHz. With the first setting I have sound on and set to all of the lowest quality settings. I then have the video running at FS 3. Yes, it does look a little choppy but smoothness isn’t really needed to enjoy this game. Also the sound may be a little of and will have some crackling. The second setting I use is without sound. I then can get it to run smoothly at FS 1 and a little slow at FS 0. If your GP can’t over-clock very well then it’s still easily playable at 133 MHz with sound off at FS 2-3. Fool around with the settings and you’ll probably be able to get something better. You may also be wondering how well this game plays with the two missing buttons when going from a SNES pad to the GP32. Well, basically the controls are as follows:
A: Interact/Talk
B: Run/Jump over Fence
X: Change tool
Y: Use tool
L: Whistle for dog
R: Whistle for Horse
Select: Display time, money, etc.
Start: Does Nothing
So really, it works out quite well when translated over to the GP32. I’ve found two good ways to do it. The first way uses both of OSNES9x’s first two Configurations using select to switch between them mid-game. The Second way uses the third configuration so that you don’t have to keep switching between configurations.
Controller Set-Up #1-
Configuration 0:
Button A: A
Button B: B
Button L: L
Button R: R
Button Start: Select
Configuration 1:
Button A: Y
Button B: B
Button L: L
Button R: X
Button Start: Select
This setup will allow you to have two ‘modes’ while playing. The First mode (configuration 0) will allow you to run around and interact with things. The Second mode (configuration 1) will be your ‘tool’ mode. With R changing tools and A using them. Just a quick press of select will switch you between the two.
Controller Set-Up #2-
Configuration 2:
Button A: A
Button B: B
Button L: R
Button R: X
Button Start: Select
Button Select: Y
This set up will allow you to do everything with out having to switch between configurations. The only thing you will loose using thins setup is the ability to whistle for your dog, which is really pretty useless anyway.
There you have it. Now go out and become farmers.
Overall Score
8.5 out of 10
Pros:
Colorful Graphics that looks very nice on a BLU screen.
Catchy Soundtrack
Innovative Game Play
Many things to do
Cons:
Crackling Sound on GP32
Two and a Half Year Time Limit
No Way to Store Items Other Than Tools
Also Try:
Harvest Moon GB/GBC (5/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon GBC 2 (6/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon GBC3 (7.5/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon 64 (8/10 N64)
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (8/10 PSX)
Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland (4/10 PS2)
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (8/10 GBA)
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (7/10 GCN)
Survival Kids (8/10 Playable on fGB32)
-Tekt5
Waking up in the morning, you glance over at your clock. One hand points up while the smaller one points down. 6:00. Like every morning, you get up eat a nice sized rice-ball (yum) and check the weather on the TV. As you open the front door, you see early birds looking for food. Off in the distance you hear your dog barking at that fox who always manages to knock down your fence. You walk over to your tool shed ready to face the day.
The World of Harvest Moon:
Many games dive you into worlds and situations that most likely in real life, you’d like to be in. Harvest Moon isn’t quite that way. In fact, it’s not that way at all. I mean come on, not many people honestly want to be farmers. Especially not the stereotypical gamer, who wants nothing to do with any thing involving any form of physical labor. Yet, somehow those developers at Natsume have made the world of Harvest Moon a very interesting and fun place to “live in”. The story starts out with your parents telling you your grandpa has recently died. You then decide to go and take over your grandpa’s ranch. Not interesting enough for you? Well, while the story may not be anywhere near as complex or entertaining as the Final Fantasy series, it is easily enough to get the game moving in the right direction. Plus, along the way, various special events will keep both the game and the story from getting overly repetitive. Yes that’s right, I said it. This game IS repetitive. So if your not one to be liking repetitive things, don’t play it. Although it isn’t too bad. Anyway, I’ll stop getting ahead of myself.
My History With Harvest Moon:
I was first introduced to Harvest Moon when my friend bought the first mono Game boy Version. As soon as I started playing it I immediately fell in love with it. Which is saying something seeing as the GB version was pretty much just a de-colorized, dumbed down port of the SNES original. Anyway, after playing the GB version I eventually went out and got the GBC version. It was really just a colorized version of the GB port, but it was still enough to keep the fire going. A few months later I discovered the holy grail of computers: EMULATION! I quickly discovered to my surprise, that there indeed was a prequel to that beloved GBC Cartridge; and it was Harvest Moon, and it was great. I played it for hours everyday. I loved it even though at the time my computer ran SNES9x much worse than the GP32(hence why you never see me complaining about the quality of our SNES emu). As time went on many sequels were released and I played almost every one of them. But alas, the original was still my favorite.
Overview of the Game:
As you awake on your first day at your newly inherited ranch, you are greeted by the friendly shipping man. He goes on to ask you your name and so on and so forth. He then gives you a ride into town so that you can meet all the friendly townsfolk you will be interacting with over the next two and a half years of your virtual life. You will also get to meet four of the five girls you can woo and marry. After you speak with EVERYONE in the town you can go back to the shipping clerk and go back to your ranch (NOTE: you can not buy anything on your first visit in town. Also when talking to shop owners talk to them both behind of and in front of the counter.) When your finally done with the slow beginning of the game the real fun starts. Here you have a few different options of what to do. You can go pick flowers and berries in the mountain and try to woo a chick or sell then respectively. Or you can go to the flower shop and buy a few bags of seed to plant in your overgrown fields. The biggest thing to remember here is that after two and a half years your parents will come visit and the game ends. You get a rating an see one of many multiple endings. After that the game is over and you must start again. To give you an idea of how long the game lasts I'll tell you this. There are four seasons/months in the game: spring, summer, fall, and winter. In each month there are 30 days. A day usually lasts anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes. The game's seasons play a big role in how you'll make money. For example, in winter no plants can grow in your fields so the best way to make money is by raising livestock. As you move along in the game more options will become available. You can eventually get married and raise a couple of kids. You can raise a horse and race him at the yearly horse races. All of your tools are upgradeable allowing you to do more work faster with less energy involved. Festivals go down in the town square every few weeks giving you a chance to do a little something with your lover, from dancing with her to buying her that special perfume or drink to spending a night at the hot springs or atop the mountain gazing at the stars. There are many more surprises hidden deep in the game such as the power berries. These fruits add a little RPG element into the game. There are 10 of them hidden all through out the game but I won't say where. Each power berry gives you a little more overall stamina. This allows you to work longer in a day. Every time you do something energy involving you loose a little of your daily stamina. You have no meter or anything showing you how much you have left but you'll be able to tell by different things your character does such as wiping his brow or sitting down for a little breather to passing out. If you really need to get more work done than your stamina allows then there are a few things you can do to temporarily raise it. You can go for a dip in the hot springs or buy some food from the town restaurant. There are a lot of other fun things to do in this game but I don't want to ruin anymore of the fun or surprises for all you potential players out there.
Graphics and Sound:
Graphically I'd say that this game is a little above your average SNES RPG. The isometric view is perfectly suited for this game. The sprites are fairly large and look very nice. The colors are bright and vibrant and change to match the mood of the said seasons beautifully. In spring you’ll see flowers in bloom. In summer you’ll get the bright green grass. In fall you’ll see leaves on the ground and many shades of brown. And in winter you’ll that relaxing mix of whites and grays. The sounds are perfect. Sounding realistic enough to make the experience fun but unrealistic enough to remember that this game isn't a farming simulation. The klunk of an axe splintering wood echoes off into the quite night sounds great. The only two sounds that I find at all annoying are the sounds of your feet scuffing the ground as you run and the sound of rain pouring down. These really only get annoying because you hear them repeated so much. The music in this game is hard to describe. You either love it or hate it. Personally I enjoy it and find myself humming it often. I even figured out how to play the town music on the piano. I know, I'm a nerd.
How it runs on the GP32:
OK, I know what your thinking now. You’re thinking "wow this sounds great but how well does it work on our GP32's?" Well, I'm here to tell you just how well it does work. I still have yet to complete the game yet on my GP32 due to lack of time but as of so far I have experienced only one minor glitch involving the transparency issues in OPENSNES9xGP (I use version 0.2). When it rains, all you see is rain, nothing else at all. Luckily for us this is easily fixed by turning off one of the background layers. I normally play it with two different settings. Both are at 166 MHz. With the first setting I have sound on and set to all of the lowest quality settings. I then have the video running at FS 3. Yes, it does look a little choppy but smoothness isn’t really needed to enjoy this game. Also the sound may be a little of and will have some crackling. The second setting I use is without sound. I then can get it to run smoothly at FS 1 and a little slow at FS 0. If your GP can’t over-clock very well then it’s still easily playable at 133 MHz with sound off at FS 2-3. Fool around with the settings and you’ll probably be able to get something better. You may also be wondering how well this game plays with the two missing buttons when going from a SNES pad to the GP32. Well, basically the controls are as follows:
A: Interact/Talk
B: Run/Jump over Fence
X: Change tool
Y: Use tool
L: Whistle for dog
R: Whistle for Horse
Select: Display time, money, etc.
Start: Does Nothing
So really, it works out quite well when translated over to the GP32. I’ve found two good ways to do it. The first way uses both of OSNES9x’s first two Configurations using select to switch between them mid-game. The Second way uses the third configuration so that you don’t have to keep switching between configurations.
Controller Set-Up #1-
Configuration 0:
Button A: A
Button B: B
Button L: L
Button R: R
Button Start: Select
Configuration 1:
Button A: Y
Button B: B
Button L: L
Button R: X
Button Start: Select
This setup will allow you to have two ‘modes’ while playing. The First mode (configuration 0) will allow you to run around and interact with things. The Second mode (configuration 1) will be your ‘tool’ mode. With R changing tools and A using them. Just a quick press of select will switch you between the two.
Controller Set-Up #2-
Configuration 2:
Button A: A
Button B: B
Button L: R
Button R: X
Button Start: Select
Button Select: Y
This set up will allow you to do everything with out having to switch between configurations. The only thing you will loose using thins setup is the ability to whistle for your dog, which is really pretty useless anyway.
There you have it. Now go out and become farmers.
Overall Score
8.5 out of 10
Pros:
Colorful Graphics that looks very nice on a BLU screen.
Catchy Soundtrack
Innovative Game Play
Many things to do
Cons:
Crackling Sound on GP32
Two and a Half Year Time Limit
No Way to Store Items Other Than Tools
Also Try:
Harvest Moon GB/GBC (5/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon GBC 2 (6/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon GBC3 (7.5/10 Playable on fGB32)
Harvest Moon 64 (8/10 N64)
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (8/10 PSX)
Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland (4/10 PS2)
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (8/10 GBA)
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (7/10 GCN)
Survival Kids (8/10 Playable on fGB32)
-Tekt5
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