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Let me preface this all by saying I adore Harvest Moon. I have owned all the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GBA, SNES and PS2 Harvest Moon games. So when I say this, it is with a heavy heart and your best interests in mind: Puzzle de Harvest Moon should never have been made. It is ridiculous, overpriced and shoddily made.
First of all it is a puzzle game, but as far as I can tell, you need no intelligence or skill to win. It is all random. I’ve tried about 15 times now to play and figure out some sort of pattern or strategy. There is none.
The point is to cultivate crops on the same plot of land as four other Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town farmers. You plant seeds, water them, fertilize them and the harvest them. To hinder enemies, you can unleash farm animals on their plots of land.
But you are doing it all at the same time! Also the items for performing each of those actions just randomly appear on the right side of the screen. So instead of systematically beating your opposing farmers through proper crop rotation, it is a frantic free-for-all.
Plus the choice of farmer has no effect on the game. I mean come on! If you play as Rick or Popuri, then the chickens could love you and attack opponents longer. If you play as Karen, then she could have had an attack where she got all the other characters drunk, which messes up their controls.
And there is no story mode. The game claims to have a single player story mode, but it is a lie. The cake is a lie and the story mode is a lie. Instead all you do is farm through four seasons against the other farmers.
This irritates me even more, because you can’t grow crops in winter. In the regular Harvest Moon games they know this, but here in the crazy puzzle Harvest Moon world apparently plants thrive and blossom when coated in ice.
The only thing that could have possibly salvaged it for me would have been the animal attacks. If the cow would have left a steaming trail of cowpies on opponents’ crops, I would have been happy. Alas, it doesn’t. After forty minutes in, I still have no idea what half the animals do, and I don’t care.
Of course a game isn’t all about abysmal gameplay, it is about presentation as well. The music sucks. It occasionally contains those high pitched notes which could almost work as a dog whistle. The graphics are boring and uninspired. The even look recycled, if that is possible.
If you’re a masochistic Harvest Moon fan who absolutely must have this game, I implore you to play the free, online demo first. You get the same experience from that as you do from the actual DS game. In fact, it is better, because it doesn’t last as long. If that doesn’t cure you, I don’t know what will.
Site [Puzzle de Harvest Moon] Product Page [GameStop]
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