jeremy1456's Full Review: Harvest Moon: Magic Melody for GameCube
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life seemed to give a pretty clear indication of where the developer wanted to take the HM series. A more realistic direction is certainly not what the doctor ordered, and I found A Wonderful Life to be downright awful. It's easily the worst in the series. Yes, it's even more cumbersome than Save the Homeland. Then a ray of hope shined through. Natsume showed off Harvest Moon: Magical Melody in it's gloriously super colorful and deformed splendor. Now it's upon us, but has it undone the damage from A Wonderful Life? Read on to find out.
I almost hate to do it but I'll tell you this right now. Harvest Moon: Magical Melody is the return to form that I was hoping for. This game contains all of the charm the series is known for, and it does it in style. Magical Melody even takes it a step further by adding several features which match the formula so well that it feels as if they should have been a part of the mix from the very start. That's saying a lot, especially from someone who once scoffed at the idea of tinkering with said formula.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
In this Harvest Moon title, you play as the usual brown haired, blue clothed lad whom you name as you start the game. For this particular scenario, you're re-introduced to the Harvest Goddess. Something is amiss though, as she has been turned to stone, and there's only one person that can save her. Two technically, but your rival (who seems far too passionate about reviving the goddess) will prove to be no help. The only way to save the deity is in acquiring 100 magical music notes. You'll quickly learn that this is no easy task.
So what is Harvest Moon about? It's a life simulation series where you play as a young rancher where you earn money by growing crops, raising animals, fishing, and gathering items. Magical Melody uses a time system in which each day is only a few minutes long. Seasons (four in a year) are thirty days long, and you can grow different crops depending on the time of year. One of the big features in most Harvest Moon titles (and in this one too) is the ability to get married and have children. To do this, you must court one of the eligible female characters with gifts, until they fall in love with you. Sounds complicated? It's pretty easy to learn, so just jump in.
Despite this game having a more clear-cut mission, Magical Melody is the Harvest Moon we've fallen in love with. The game is first and foremost about farming. Making friends is given greater emphasis for this sequel because it's required in order to obtain many of the magic notes. How exactly do you get the rest of them? Mainly through the magical little milestones that you don't even notice; your first step, cleaning up the town, sleeping all day, and more. There is no sense of urgency to save the goddess, so it doesn't need to be a focus unless you want it to be.
One of the particularly awesome features of this Harvest Moon title is that you can play as both the standard male character, or as as female. Usually Natsume would opt to release both a girl and boy version, and so including both of them into a single package is a great move. What's also cool is that both scenarios offer the same options for making a family so you won't sacrifice anything with either one. The only drawback is that you can't marry other girls whilst playing as the female, not that I've... uh, tried it.
Magical Melody offers you more freedom than any other Harvest Moon game. Firstly, you can own different land. In the beginning of the game you are given a choice of where you would like to live; the river, the beach, or in town. While each has their advantages and disadvantages, the river is usually best. Not to fret though, you can purchase these other plots of land from the mayor and use them for building barns, coops, or even additional houses! What's more is that as you befriend the mayor he'll put up other pieces of land for sale. Eventually you can be the proud owner of the entire area outside of town!
You even have freedom when it comes to growing your crops. In the past games you could only plant them in a specific area on your farm. Now, you can plant them everywhere, except on someone elses' property. This means that land up for grabs is fair game for crop growing. Be aware that a new resident, if your crops are in the land they've just bought, will build right over them. You can tell if land is spoken for by pressing the Z button. This will highlight all area belonging to you as the color blue, all undisputed will be green, and land owned by someone else will be yellow.
For Magical Melody, you're offered the largest cast of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes ever! There are 11 members of the opposite sex that you can court, no matter if you're playing the girl or guy scenario. What's extremely cool about this is that these characters are primarily from older Harvest Moon titles. Heck, you can even marry Eve and Maria from the original HM title on the Super Nintendo, along with some others from the same game. You'll also find characters from Save the Homeland, which is quite cool. Just ignore your creepy rival (whom you can marry) as she/he looks exactly the same no matter if it's a girl or guy.
Magical Melody has taken several ideas straight from Animal Crossing, and they work extremely well here. Firstly, villagers will constantly move into your town, and move out. You have to achieve specific goals in order to get them to first move in, and to keep them, you've got to make them stay happy. This is no easy task, but if they move away because they've been neglected, you can sell off items they typically liked and eventually they will return to the town.
Another idea taken from Animal Crossing is the fishing system. This new method is ripped straight from AC, but it's a huge improvement compared to what Harvest Moon used to use. Basically you walk along the shore until you see a fish's dark outline in the water, at which point you cast, and wait to get a bite. For the first time ever fishing is made fun for this Harvest Moon title, and so don't feel bad if find yourself wasting away the day with a bobber in the water.
Another new feature, seemingly inspired by Animal Crossing, is the ability to arrange your furniture inside your home. In the past the arrangement was streamlined and automatic, and so it's quite nice to be able to upgrade and arrange it yourself. There are two slight problems with this though; you can only store one of certain furniture types (beds, refrigerators) in a house at a time, and there aren't a lot of different furniture items in the game. Still, this is a welcome addition to the series.
The game suffers from a few other more serious problems. First off, the town festivals and holidays are weak. Each one lasts only a few minutes long, and besides the swimming festival, they don't allow interaction. They mostly consist of one small cinematic. Another downfall is that the game offers too few upgrades for your buildings. I went in expecting this area to be expanded on from past games, and I am disappointed to see that this isn't the case.
Graphics are a bit disappointing in all honesty. I thought the art style would eventually grow on me, but this wasn't the case. Everything's just way to cutetsy, and the chibi-fied character designs are at times, frighteningly deformed. Still, I prefer this to the realistic direction the series was taking, and I'm quite glad the view is once again top-down. The game is also plagued with some moderate to terrible slowdown. This occurs mostly when there are a ton of characters on screen, which doesn't happen often, but when it does it's extremely noticeable.
Music is decent. Nothing special, but nothing dreadful. The high point of the musical score is the theme for Summer. This tropical beat is fairly catchy, which is more than I can say about the rest of the music. Sound effects are decent enough, but you'll soon not notice them because they aren't a big part of the design. One annoying feature in this game are the character voices. Upon engaging conversation, the various characters each have a single word of spoken dialogue. The problem? The voices can at times be grating because of how high pitched they are. Here's a little advice, cover your ears when talking to Dan.
Control is pretty good for this game. Because the camera rests in glorious top-down position you won't have to worry about tweaking with the camera. Moving around is pretty easy and the basic controls are responsive. You can scroll through your inventory with the C-stick, which definitely saves a lot of time. This game features a ton of intuitive menus, displaying statistics, the town map, your rival's stats, and even characters' feelings toward you. They're a little confusing and difficult to get used to, but they aren't even necessary to use.
Final Recommendation
If you're a fan of the classic Harvest Moon games than definitely check this out. It's a perfect homage to what once was, but I still prefer Back to Nature and Harvest Moon 64. While Magical Melody won't convert those who hate Harvest Moon, I easily recommend this one over all else from this generation to those who are looking to get into the series.
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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