Harvest Moon the Tale of Two Towns Review
Harvest Moon: The Tale Of Two Towns Review
Developer: Marvelous Interactive
Publisher: Rise Star Games
Available on: Nintendo DS & Nintendo 3DS (DS Version Reviewed)
It'south fourth dimension to become in tune with nature, with the latest in the long-running Harvest Moon series. Can a game that offers such serene calmness, offer a compelling experience?
Allow me to preface this review with a confession. In my early teens I experimented with weird stuff, like the original Harvest Moon on the Super Nintendo. Somehow I got addicted to the game and I played it solidly for months, taking charge of a rundown area of farmland and turning it into a profit-making farmyard and family home. Subsequently a long session of rehab (playing a ton of Super Metroid and Final Fantasy Six), I finally kicked my Harvest Moon habit. A few years later I relapsed a little and dabbled with some Harvest Moon on GameCube and GBA, but I didn't get the same kick out of those that I did from the SNES original.
Over a decade after, here I am with The Tale of Two Towns on the Nintendo DS (as well released for Nintendo 3DS. The two towns of the game'southward title are Bluebell and Konohana, the towns have been divided for some time because of an argument over who has the best cuisine. As a result the Harvest Goddess has shut the tunnel linking the two towns.
This is where your character comes in, a plucky young farmer wannabe who wants to live in the surface area. You are given a choice of farms at the kickoff of the game; exercise you pick the livestock-focused Bluebell, or the crop-obsessed Konohana? You are free to interact with the citizens of the boondocks you didn't choose, which comes in handy when acquiring items that aren't available in your adopted dwelling town. You are even able to move to the over boondocks every once in a while, if y'all feel that the grass is a fleck greener.
As in all Harvest Moon games, the game is dissever into several years, consisting of four seasons of 31 days. After a few days of lengthy tutorial, you lot are pretty much left to your own devices, to run your farm however you want. If you have crops, you'll need to water them and if y'all have accept livestock you will need to feed them. Money tin be earned past selling your crops and produce, or by finding items in the mountains to sell.
A big office of this new Harvest Moon, is the noticeboards located in each town. From these noticeboards you are able to accept requests from your beau townspeople, which range from obtaining items to paying for goods. Completion of these time-limited tasks is optional and you lot are non penalised for failure, but you will exist rewarded with all sort of items, some of them are practically essential, specially requests that advantage y'all with some of import tools.
Cooking is besides some other focus of the game, equally at that place are a number of occasions where you must use various ingredients to create delicious meals. A weekly cooking challenge requires y'all to make a certain type of dish (like soups or desserts), just every flavor a bigger cooking claiming takes place, where the best dishes from Bluebell go upwardly against the best dishes from Konohana. It'due south participating (and hopefully winning) in these competitions that helps build bridges between the warring towns and eventually opens up the tunnel, allowing for easy admission between the 2 locales.
The problem I find with Harvest Moon games, is that although early on you are given a thorough rundown of the nuts, the game then really leaves you on your own, and at times it really isn't articulate what yous are supposed to do next. It's the kind of game that requires farther reading from the net to really sympathize how everything works; the same is definitely true of Tale of 2 Towns.
Just once you get past the slowness of the first couple of in-game weeks, the game definitely improves, with tons of things to occupy your time. Harvest Moon has e'er been about juggling piece of work and a social life and the social aspects accept definitely been expanded upon with the two different towns, and message lath quests.
Something that did badger me with Tale of 2 Towns, is that everything happens so damn slowly. The in-game cutscenes go on for so long, while NPCs natter on about unimportant things, which is especially irritating during Festivals. Considering this type of game runs at quite a irksome footstep, information technology is rather frustrating to have to sit through and then much waffle when you but want to deport on with the working on your farm.
But the biggest upshot I had with the game, was a freezing issues that occurred way more than a retail Nintendo DS game should. The game was originally released in Japan on July eighth 2010 and in the US on September 20th 2011, and a few net searches informed me that users were experiencing the same bug dorsum then. My copy froze iii times in the space of an hour, on both my Nintendo DSi 40 and Nintendo 3DS systems. For a organisation which games aren't patched, it'southward pretty inexcusable to see freezing issues creep in, especially in Harvest Moon, where the game tin only exist saved at the end of each day, significant I had to replay whole days, which tin can take a considerable amount of time.
Graphically, Tale of Ii Towns is suitably twee for a Harvest Moon title. The game'southward bright second backgrounds and cute 3D characters wait okay (even on the larger screen of my Nintendo DS 40) and I never experienced any slowdown, mainly because there really isn't that much going on with the visuals. Every bit is quite typical for Nintendo DS titles, dialogue is accompanied by anime-mode 2D cutouts, which are pretty generic only functional, much like the game's audio.
VERDICT: Tale of Two Towns is a standard Harvest Moon game, with very little reason to recommend if you lot have are not a fan of games similar Animal Crossing, or the Harvest Moon serial. It'southward non a terrible game, it simply lacks imagination and merely the about dedicated of fans will find enjoyment and motivation in the sluggish pace and irritating narration throughout course of the game's admittedly long length. But for those who do love Harvest Moon, the new features to the series are potentially welcome ones, simply don't wait a drastic alter from the norm and be wary of the infuriating freeze problems that happens far too oftentimes.
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Lee Garbutt
I'thousand a UK-based writer with a passion for gaming that spans over ii decades. For years I've been interested in the history of video games and as a consequence I accept quite the collection of console hardware, not to mention a brain bursting with gaming trivia and knowledge. I've been a role of the GodisaGeek family since 2011, writing, talking and doing videos throughout that time.
I besides have my ain YouTube channel, Pug Hoof Gaming (http://www.youtube.com/pughoofgaming) and you can follow that on Twitter @TheLastMetroid
On Twitter I can be located @TheLastMetroid and I tin can be emailed at lee[at]godisageek.com. I'd love to hear from you!
A veteran GIAG member, I've been writing, talking and taping for the site since 2011
Source: https://www.godisageek.com/2012/07/harvest-moon-tale-towns-review/
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