Today is going to be a little bit different. The video game that I've been waiting months for finally released. I haven't been playing non-stop or anything, but I have played it long enough to have my review for it. However, most of you don't come here for my video game reviews. Heck, I'm pretty sure none of you come for my rare book reviews either. Fortunately, in addition to my review below, I have an interview I gave on Talena Winters' website. It was really fun to do and I get to talk about my books, so if you want to read that (and I totally suggest you do), head over there.
Years ago, after I'd tried and failed badly writing my first book, my boyfriend gave me his old Gameboy Advance. Unfortunately, he didn't have any video games of the sort that I enjoyed, so we took a run over to Wal-Mart to see what they had. I got a few games that day, all out of a $10 bin. One of those games was Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. I fully admit I picked it up because my boyfriend promised me that if I didn't like it, he had a friend who would buy it from me, for the $10 afterward. After all, there was literally no downside to buying a game I was pretty sure I was going to hate. "Extreme Farming" just didn't sound all that entertaining to me. After trying the other few games I got, and becoming bored with them before a week, I finally took 'Extreme Farming' out of its case for a test run.
I got probably got over a hundred hours in that game over the next two weeks. I was playing it on the bus to work, on the bus home, during my breaks, during the evening, pushing back bedtime just to finish one more day, which always became 5 or 6 before the system actually got turned off.
Even after that extreme rush ended, I was still playing it quite often for the next year. I bought the next games, but they kept going right downhill until Story of Seasons came out. Apparently, they made the original Harvest Moon series, but lost the name and the publisher just kept using it (more on that here if you're interested). Story of Seasons took everything I loved about the original game and made it even better. Since then, I've lost thousands of hours to the Story of Seasons franchise and this game looks to be no different.
Now that you know the history, on to my review.
Friends of Mineral Town is a solid 8 out of 10 stars for me. As I mentioned, its a remake of the original, so to keep the vibe it originally had, they kept the story pretty simple and didn't change the characters much. This does mean that the townsfolk tend to be less nuanced than what we've seen from Story of Seasons up to this point. It's more like the more recent Harvest Moon games for that. On the other hand, the dialogue has been upped a notch from the original to make everybody seem a bit more alive and interesting. The new character designs were made with the idea that everybody is hot in their own way. This is more hit and miss. The original pictures had a bit more life to them, showing their personalities through pose and dress, as well as expression. Now we have a lot more to the expressions, and less about the way they dress and stand. Personally, I like most of the new designs, though Zack and the Mayor do nothing for me. Also, the Harvest Goddess was always elegant and beautiful, my marriage candidate of choice in the first one. Here, they made her more cute than eloquent and hot... much to my disappointment.
I should mention that they've now opened up romances to either gender. You still get a child in the end, and life continues. You can play with it or not as you choose. Personally, I am all for this change, and I hope that we'll have it in every game moving forward from this point.
In addition to the original bachelors and bachelorettes, we've got a new girl and guy as well. I love Jennifer, everything from her character to her design is awesome... Brandon on the other hand has to be more than the beefcake he appears to be, but for the life of me, I don't see it. He's surly every time I talk to him, to the point where I don't care to learn about him further.
The controls are a bit wonky... less intuitive than you would expect, but you'll pick them up rather quickly. The days feel like they're passing by too quickly, but if you plan your days in advance (from the comfort of your nullspace home), I can guarantee that you won't feel anywhere near as flustered trying to finish everything.
One thing I dislike is that we are missing the customization that we've come to expect from a Story of Seasons game. You choose your character (one of four options) and while you'll have different outfits, you won't be able to change your hair color or anything. Also, the skin colors are notably white, pale, and something near tan... I would have liked to see more diverse skin tones, though, with perhaps with them not offering hair options, they felt it was best to limit colors to match the hair tones they chose. Regardless of the reasoning, I missed the ability to change my character and house to match what I wanted it to be. I hope that they'll add DLC or add a quality of life update adding in the options for it, eventually.
And that's about it. I entirely suggest getting this game. It isn't as complex as the more recent offerings from Story of Seasons, but that simplicity is part of its charm, in my opinion. There's still going to be tons of playability to the game and hundreds of hours of fun for you to enjoy while you play out the different lives you can live in Mineral Town.
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