1st
Harvest Moon
I’ve never played Harvest Moon. I’ve heard about it for years. You farm. You raise animals. You befriend villagers, get married and eventually have a kid. It sounds like a novel animal crossing type game sans the animal villagers.
I finally rented Harvest Moon Sunshine Islands from Gamefly. Initially I was a little bored and confused by the game. I didn’t have the instruction manual, so I wasn’t sure how to do basic things like give my fellow villagers presents. Once I finally did figure out how to give them something, they would snub their noses at me and not accept my fabulous gift of weeds or an empty can.
I found a great site detailing the ins and outs of the game. While not complete, it has helped me tremendously. I’m still not the best farmer around (though I’ve won all my farming competitions thus far).
Almost a year has gone by in the game. Each season is one month long. And I have yet to raise enough cash to build a barn. I accidentally raised the most useless island first (link island which is tiny with nothing of interest on it. It connects other islands…that I haven’t raised yet) and have only recently begun sucking up to residents to get more sun stones. I can’t figure out what male bachelor my character fancies as husband material. I’m leaning toward the fisherman (Denny) or the stuck up cowboy who hates me (Vaughn) although I feed Pierre egg soup every day and he seems completely enamored by my third rate cooking. I suppose it’s too soon to worry about marriage just yet since I haven’t raised the island with the church on it.
All in all I like this Harvest Moon game, tedious though it sometimes is. The days in it are sometimes too short and sometimes too long. And there is never ever enough money or wood. But I look forward to the little festivals (even though I can’t compete in a lot of them because I don’t have many animals—at the time of this post I have three chickens and a dog). But by this time next year I fully intend to have a cow…or a horse…
