Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

A decent enough addition for anyone who enjoys a decent farm-sim - Farmville doesn't count! - even if it's not exactly the best entry in the series. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Harvest Moon


 
Price: GB £4.49, EU €4.50
Publisher: Natsume
Developer: Natsume
Released: 1998
System: GameBoy Color

While the Harvest Moon series may have had several rather in-depth entries since the fantastic Gamecube title 'It's a Wonderful Life' back when this portable version was released things were seemingly a little simpler as it's a more 'stripped back' representation of just exactly what the series is all about, which is lots of hard work! The simple storyline goes that your Grandfather has left his entire farm to you, - he tells you this from beyond the grave - so now it's up to you to turn the whole place around as it's looking rather run down and become the best darn rancher that you can be, try your best too as your grandfather's spirit will return each in-game year to check up on your progress so make the old guy proud!


It all starts off slowly, once you've chosen your gender plus what pet you want it's off to the farm where you'll hopefully make a name for yourself one day, so to start with you'll need to get the place back into workable shape by using the tools that have also been provided so you can chop wood with the axe, smash rocks with the hammer and even cut down weeds with the sickle right from the start which is rather refreshing. Most of your first in-game week will be spent performing these tasks in order to get enough cash together for some seeds which in turn will allow you to grow grass plus other small plants which take time to grow, you can only think about getting yourself some livestock once you have enough grass for fodder to feed them; there's always a logical process to things which some will find fun though this may frustrate others, it's also worth noting that there is a secret hideaway underneath the farm which is home to some gnomes who are only too happy to trade you two toadstools a day for a few bits of food, you can actually make quite a bit of money this way as the 'shrooms' are worth a fair bit of coin, just don't tell the gnomes.

Once you get going things become easier as you settle into a cycle of growing crops to feed your animals, obtaining produce from them, selling for profit then ploughing all of the money back into your thriving farm to make it the very best it can be, it's all actually rather therapeutic for a good while just so long as you don't expect too much else from the experience then you'll probably enjoy playing for a good few hours. It does get rather repetitive though as you are basically locked in to the same cycle so without any of those other 'distractions' that the series has become famous for such as finding a wife, starting a family etc you will most likely tire of the experience within a few hours unless you simply enjoy games that limit you to a few simple tasks, in which case you'll probably be delighted by it.

Visually there is still a fair bit of charm present here being that this is the GameBoy Color version, so what you do have at least is a nicely presented farm simulation game with a competent level of animation reserved for the sprites which will defintiely bring a smile to your face even though they are clearly rather basic. The audio isn't much to crow about either as you have four simple tunes that play for each season which aren't bad but when you consider that
they are looped and that they will restart every time you leave or enter a building, it's quite easy to see how this could grate on you after only a short while, otherwise everything is all very functional.

Not exactly the 'finest hour' of the Harvest Moon series but this is still definitely very playable if you take it at face value, as it really is very stripped-down only offering the most basic but enjoyable farming tasks and very little else, just so long as you know that then you will get some brief enjoyment out of it but I could hardly recommend it as the best starting point as it's not entirely representative of the series. Obviously if you're a long-term fan of the series then it's likely that you'll miss all the other brilliant elements which have been added over the years but if you simply must have it in your collection then you could do a lot worse.

Verdict : A satisfying harvest but it won't sustain you for more than a few moons.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!