Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness | Completely New Format; Loads of Fun

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness | Can be a great game and great concepts, but the controls are terrible.

pc & video games:

Harvest Moon: Isla...

	Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness Nintendo DS \| Natsume, Inc., 2008 average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Completely New Format; Loads of Fun

Harvest Moon Island is the real, long-awaited remake of the series for the Nintendo DS. All the graphics are fully 3D, there are nice 2D portraits of the characters with a variety of facial expressions, and the overall environment is very nice. This game is much more challenging than some of the original Harvest Moons, especially due to the difficult sun/rain crop system and the hard to obtain wonderful stones. The game forces the player to befriend many of the villagers, and the main objective is to build up Sunny Island and get more people to move in, some of them being the bachelors/bachelorettes. (The island itself is also very large and fun to explore.)

Considering that you can play as either a male OR female, and the fact that there are 2 save files, this is indeed a very good game--it's like 2 in 1. No more waiting for the girl's version, etc. The only main trouble, besides the challenge (which im sure many players will enjoy), is that the exclusive touch controls can get a bit annoying, especially when it comes to watering crops. However, it takes only a couple of hours to get used to, and after that, many players may find this option more immersive and intuitive. You can conveniently tap on characters from across the screen to give them gifts, and there's almost no chance of accidentally "littering."

All in all, Harvest Moon Island of Happiness is a wonderful step forward in the series, and avid fans will not be disappointed.

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Can be a great game and great concepts, but the controls are terrible.

I have this game and bought it at Gamestop, but I played this game for 2 hours now and seems like a really fun game so far. But all I have to tell you is that Natsume made a big mistake of the concept of using the stylus for the entire game which makes the controls really annoying.

Graphics
Typical Harvest moon graphics, you pretty much the same as the other Harvest Moon for DS

Sounds
I love the music in the Spring time pretty good and upbeating. I pretty much like all the Harvest moon music.

Gameplay
Great concepts, you have to get money to buy a new bridge and get more people on the island. The more you plant and gain more money and get more shippments, the more people will come.

Controls
By far the worst part, but yet the most important part. I know I complained about the stylus, but you use it for your tools, moving around shipping and pretty much everything. The Control pad and Buttons are only good to select crops or your weapons, but it is easy at this point to use the stylus. L and R buttons are pointless, it makes your character run, but you have your stylus do it for your automatically.

Maybe I have not got use to the stylus or controls part, but I like using the D-pad to move and the buttons to farm. It is sort of annoying because you farm much slower. Meaning you have to go to the square and tap the stylus and then move again and do it again. Now it was easy just using the D-pad, but it is a pain with the style because the character does not move where you tell him/her to do.

Also, you can not use the cheating method of getting something out of your rugsack easily you have to go tap the menu and then put it in your read box and then ship it. Then it asks you the question do you really want to ship it. I am not so sure if you loose friendship points if you litter or not.

Overall:

Natsume would have hit the mark if they implemented the controls like the other Harvest Moon games. If I known the controls were bad, I would have not bought the game nor the game guide because I loved every Harvest moon game I bought from them for the DS and gameboy, N64, Gamecube and etc..

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Why the Stylus?

First, I hate that it is all stylus driven and I have now vowed to not buy another completely stylus driven game even though I have Zelda but it is my least favorite of all the Zeldas. I make so many mistakes because the control is clunky and if she is near a building she gets stuck and I've lost count how many logs I picked up instead of chopping and I'm almost through the first season and still haven't figured out a fool proof method for these controls. And I don't know why when you equip something like the watering can you have to press it twice, once for your character to show it to you and another to use it; that's not cute. Gamemakers, please make stylus use optional. I'm 51 and female but my 6 yr old and 15 yr old neices get frustrated with this so who exactly is your market?

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6

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