You would think
that a game about looking after livestock, growing vegetables and working the
land with a pickaxe would be incredibly boring but somehow Natsume made a game
that makes farm life downright addictively entertaining. The Harvest Moon
series has come a long way since its SNES beginnings and, having appeared on
most of Nintendo’s different consoles and handhelds, the series continues to
bring fans its delightful farming simulator on the Nintendo DS with Harvest
Moon DS: Island of Happiness.
Like past games
in the Harvest Moon series, Island of Happiness contains something
of a story. You start the game by choosing between a male or female character
and following him or her as you board a ship on your way to an unknown
destination. Suddenly, a storm tosses the ship around until you are thrown into
sea. You wake up to find yourself washed up ashore on a mysterious island that
has long been abandoned by its last residents. Yet you are not alone on the
island since survivors of the same shipwreck start their new life on the island.
Therefore, it is up to you to take control of the island’s only ranch and make
it productive once again.
As you work the
land, the other survivors form a community that suddenly grows when word gets
around that the island has once again become inhabited. Soon enough, the
deserted island becomes a thriving village with shops and various citizens. As a
farmer, you grow crops and raise livestock so your kindly neighbors can sell
what you produce. It’s a rather solitary life of plowing the field, planting
various seeds and tending to the animals, you’ll procure from the livestock
store. Thankfully, the island comes with helpful sprites and even a pond that
happens to be home to a Harvest Goddess that will lend you a hand if you make
the right offering.
Island of
Happiness
doesn’t do anything completely new to the series so veteran Harvest Moon
fans will find returning favorite features such as a farm chores, community
interaction and even finding that special someone to marry and start a family
with when farm life becomes to overwhelming. The only difference between playing
as a male or female character is the choices of mates. Of course, if you play as
a male, you will get a choice of six different island girls to try to woo and if
you play as a girl, you will try to make impression on eligible bachelors.
You’ll be offering potential mates presents and going out with them during
seasonal events in order to marry them and – later – have children that will
inherit the farm.
As I mentioned
earlier, gamers new to the series might think that pulling out weeds and
clearing debris to plant and then water seeds might seem like a real snooze but
it’s actually a surprisingly entertaining simulation of farm life. This formula
worked for past Harvest Moon games and it does so on the Nintendo DS with
the only exception that the controls just don’t work at all. Island of
Happiness utilizes the bottom touch screen for character movement and while
that might sound like a brilliant idea it just doesn’t work. You move your
character by dragging the Stylus in the direction you would like to move and
this makes for some rather clumsy and frustrating movements. Imagine trying to
get to a certain spot on time only taking a lot longer thanks to the fact that
you have to drag your character around slowly and you’ll see how frustrating
movement can be in this game.
Picking up
objects and planting crops are also awkward mainly because you have to tap the
object or plot where you would like to plant with the Stylus. The touch screen
mini-games fair a bit better during certain events but other than that the
controls hold back the fun considerably. Unfortunately, there is no control
option that switches the controls to the D-pad so you are stuck with the touch
screen actions. What the game does right is the Wi-Fi connectivity that allows
you to go online and compete against other farmers in the game. Other than that,
it’s clear that Natsume has a long way to go in making the Harvest Moon series
work for the DS.
On the visual
front, the game looks decent enough and retains that old school quality of past
games in the series. Now, this isn’t a bad thing but change is definitely
something that should be considered seeing as the DS is more than capable of
displaying some impressive graphics. Still, the backgrounds remain colorful and
the characters are still cute as a button. The game’s soundtrack is still lively
and this time around the sound effects are nicely detailed to the point that
you’ll make out every sound around you.
As a big fan of
Natsume’s Harvest Moon series, Island of Happiness for the
Nintendo DS is a major disappointment. We can forgive the fact that the game
hasn’t changed much – even on a new handheld platform – but we can’t forgive the
awful touch-screen controls or lack of innovative touches that could have made
this Harvest Moon a delightful treat for DS owners. Alas, there’s very
little here to recommend to any loyal fan of this beloved series. Here’s hoping
the next offering will be a lot better than this on the DS.
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Gameplay: 5.5
On paper the
touch-screen controls sound like a great idea but they are not implemented well
here. In fact, movement becomes rather irritatingly clumsy to the point that
you’ll take longer to do most of your chores than usual. All of the usual
Harvest Moon goodies are present and accounted for in Island Happiness.
Graphics: 6.0
Visually, the
game isn’t bad to look at but this game could have looked a lot better
considering the fact that the DS can display some impressive graphics. The dated
visuals might still look cute and colorful but we would have appreciated some
updated graphics for the DS.
Sound: 6.5
The game’s
sound does a great job of placing you in a farm with all those animal sounds and
the nightly cricket chirps. Even the soundtrack is endearing and doesn’t get old
despite the fact that it recycles itself. I wish there were voices to accompany
the characters’ dialogue, though.
Difficulty:
Medium
Taking care of
a farm and the livestock is no small task and the fact that you’ll be performing
a slew of chores makes your daily life seem very full. Growing crops and taking
care of your animals is a challenge but not as much as finding a mate and
keeping him or her happy.
Concept: 5.5
While it’s
quite demanding, the farming life is still downright fun and satisfying. There
are some good characters to interact with and courting the opposite sex to start
your own family is back again. Unfortunately, the touch screen actions are
horrible and distract from what could have been yet another good entry in the
series.
Multiplayer:
5.0
Through a
Wi-Fi connection you can go online to see how well you do against other players
as well as compete against another player for pure bragging rights.
Overall: 5.5
Harvest
Moon DS: Island of Happiness
is not an unplayable game by any means but the horrible controls
simply keep it from being a fun game. If you can look past the flawed touch
screen controls, there is a fun farming simulator that isn’t short on all the
things we love about the Harvest Moon series.
