haus_kat's Full Review: Harvest Moon: Magic Melody for GameCube
I love this game! I had played the "Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life" game before I played this one and I was not as happy with that version of Harvest Moon. I decided to rent this from Blockbuster before I committed to buying it just in case I ended up not liking it but after I played this I quickly went and bought my own copy and just as quickly got a lot less sleep over the next few days! If you loved "Animal Crossing" for Game Cube then chances are you would love this game too because there are similarities with the two games.
The graphics are so cute and I love that you can choose to be a boy or a girl and there seems to be some variation in what your character might end up looking like (going by the mini games). I wish you could get some more outfits for your character and change their outfits though. That was one of the only things that I had liked about "Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life".
The best improvement in this game from "Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life" is that the time clock is paused when you go indoors or when you talk to any villager characters outside. That leaves plenty of time to take care of feeding your animals and watering or harvesting your crops and still have time to wander around town doing other fun stuff.
I also love that the animals do not lose hearts from their heart level if you leave them in the barn or chicken coop all the time. This way you can feed and brush them or sheer the sheep without that taking time off of the time clock. It's also very convenient that there are shipping bins inside of the chicken coop and inside the barn so that if you plant your crops nearby then you can save time by going inside of the barn or chicken coop to drop the items into the shipping box.
One con in this game is that each individual item in your refrigerator, your ruck sack or on your shelves takes up one block of space. You will quickly find that it seems you never have enough storage space! It would have been better if items could be combined into blocks of space so that, for example, you could just have a little number next to the icon for the item which would let you know how many of each of those items that you had.
The horse really bugged me too. He's not very loyal (even at ten hearts) and sometimes when you are riding him and you go into a store or somewhere you may come back out to find him gone. That's very inconvenient! When you were expecting to have the horse to ride so you could save some time from walking that is annoying to find he goes off back to the barn by himself. Also, it seems you can't get him to jump fences like you could in the previous Harvest Moon game and so you have to leave a space in your fencing to allow you to ride the horse out of your property, which means that your other animals could "escape" from your yard and wander around the neighborhood through the space in the fencing if you have them out in your yard. One other thing that bugs me about the horse is that the same button that you use to take things out of your ruck sack is the same button that you use to jump onto the horse when you want to ride him. If you are not standing close enough to the horse or in the right position then you might waste time by accidently taking things out of your ruck sack instead of hopping onto the horse. That's kinda frustrating if it happens like three times in a row too.
Those are pretty much the only complaints that I have about this game though. The village is very large and there are many things to do besides farming. You can go fishing or make friends with the other villagers, go mining for gems and things in the mines, look for items around the town map and there are festivals and mini games too. You can combine items to "cook" various food dishes. You can also buy different pieces of property and build houses and add other things to your properties such as well or windmills. You can even customize the decorations and furniture within your houses. They even let you change the name of your farm if you feel like it but they do not let you change the animals' names. I changed my mind about one of my sheep's names so I ended up just having to sell him and get another sheep.
I haven't found any "cheats" for this game but there are lots and lots of great game-play tips here: http://www.gamestats.com/objects/780/780378/help.html
which really helped me out a lot.
The menu on this game is amazingly detailed. They keep track of pretty much everything for you. It does take a bit of time to get used to navigating it. There are a lot of different sections to it. I think they thought of everything that they could add to it and didn't seem to leave anything out. I like that the on-screen time clock and stamina bar disappears when you are fishing so that doesn't obstruct your view.
One of the things I really love about his game is the amount of details and characters. There are many villagers that you can make friends with and there are also several little wild animals too. It's too bad that they don't let you choose a pet cat though. You can only get a dog and, unlike, the previous Harvest Moon game, you don't get to choose what your dog looks like. You also do not get to choose different colors of cows or horses but that is really only a minor complaint. When you make friends with the villagers they give your different gifts and there some nice cut scenes with them as well.
I've been playing this game obsessively for several weeks now and I have not gotten bored with it yet. It is the sort of game where you tell yourself you'll just play for a little bit and before you know it a couple hours have passed. It's very easy to get absorbed in.
In the game you have a ranch and you can grow crops or raise animals. Basically the goal is to have a successful farm and to make friends with everyone in the village, including the animals. You can plant a variety of crops or concentrate on raising livestock or you can do both if you prefer. I did both at the same time and I still had time to occasionally stroll the village and do other stuff. It really help of you upgrade the tools as soon as possible so that you can get the chores done quicker.
edit:
I also forgot to mention that there is a rivalry set up with one of the neighbors in the village and you're supposed to try to make your farm better than his/hers (the character of the rival Jaime can be a boy or a girl). You also get musical notes for completing various things in the game and when you have fifty of them you can save the Harvest Goddess that got turned to stone at the beginning of the game. The game does not seem to ever end which is one thing that I like about it. You can play as long as you like to. Also, unlike other Harvest Moon games, your character does not have to get married to complete the main goal of the game, although if you want to get all of the musical notes you would have to but you only need to get fifty notes to rescue the Harvest Goddess.
Take over a small farm, as you raise all sorts of plants and animals Make sure your grazing animals don't escape - and make sure they're protected fro...More at Amazon Marketplace
Take over a small farm, as you raise all sorts of plants and animals Make sure your grazing animals don't escape - and make sure they're protected fro...More at Amazon
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