It has taken a mere Eighteen years for this title to make it across to Europe, within that time this farming sim has had numerous "sequels" and we've been through almost three generations of Virtual Console with this title seemingly sneaking in at the presumed end of the current service running on the Wii U being that the Switch must be getting its own version of the service soon.

Also during this time there have been plenty of alternatives released within the same genre on newer platforms, even though admittedly these all vary in terms of quality, there is seemingly one exception; Stardew Valley which seems to take the essence of what made the Harvest Moon series so great, keeping the 16-Bit visual style while adding multiple gameplay improvements.

Being that the upcoming Switch version will even have timed-exclusivity for the multiplayer (something the real Harvest Moon games have lacked) you might be wondering if it's even worth playing the N64 Harvest Moon title if you already own a Switch but I would wager that it most definitely is worth trying out and it's a must buy if you're still gaming mostly on the Wii U while you wait for more games to be released on Nintendo's latest console.

So without further ado, on with the review!  
  
Available for download this week we have...   

My first experience with the famous farming series was with Harvest Moon - A Wonderful Life on the Nintendo GameCube simply because at the time it was the easiest gateway into a type of game which I had been aware of for many years but not had the experience of playing thanks either to the titles not making it over here in the UK for release or simply not being able to afford the original 16-Bit SNES release at the time back in the Nineties when I was but a boy with a relatively new-found love for videogames with an abundance of time to play them. 

Now I'm in my Thirties and have the money to purchase most of the games I want, including this monumental release for a fraction of the import price but I barely seem to have enough time to play these days, yet I shall somehow find time for this beloved 64-Bit farming simulation which time had nearly forgotten if it wasn't for this sudden digital release in what is now the Twentieth anniversary of the franchise as a whole.

So the story goes that you are left an abandoned farm by your grandfather who has recently passed away, that's essentially it but clearly it is now your destiny to restore the land to its former glory and then maintain it for as long as you possibly can. You are given a set of tools to use but the rest is up to you, additionally there's an abundance of optional side quests which you can partake in such as selling your crops, Horse racing, taking part in town festivals plus other events which you might happen upon including love interests & getting married, starting a family, gaining recipes and even filling up a photo album from various in-game life events.

How does your farmland grow? Sporadically? Or all in a row? The choice is yours.

In a change to the original formula you are now limited by how much you can work each day (regulations huh?) in addition to having only a limited amount of stamina, (yay for realism!) there are numerous features which are only available at certain times of the day in-game such as shop opening times and you have a new season every thirty days which will give you different weather patterns as well as new crops to grow. If you've never played a Harvest Moon title then you should be aware that you will find yourself growing crops to harvest a fair amount but the more often you use the tools provided to you, the quicker they will upgrade to silver & gold variants which will speed the process along nicely so that you can perhaps partake in the other activities this enchanting game world has to offer.

There are relationships which you can build up with your animals, looking after them is equally as importance as the crops, especially as if you build up your bond to such a level with either your pet Dog or Horse then you can enter them into races which are fun in their own little way. If you fail to do certain things in the game though then things will turn sour, crops will wither if they aren't watered, cattle will die if you don't feed them and even your potential love interest will go off with another NPC if you fail to win them over quickly enough; just like in life I suppose... it's all about what you make it, so it's best to do a good job if you can.

Well... erm, you see... the thing is, that I... sort of, kind of do?

While the visuals do have a certain amount of charm to them, they seem to sit oddly between the delightful aesthetic used in the SNES title and an early N64 title, it's nice enough for what it is but I'm sure that it's one of the more divisive styles the series has had, especially when you look at the GameCube iteration which was certainly one of the best iterations I've ever seen in the series; there are often glitches here and there as you can see the very small draw-distance coupled with the restricted isometric angle makes for an odd juxtaposition at times though it still has a bit of charm even with the simple animations used. All of the soundtrack is nice enough though very repetitive once you've heard the same track loop multiple times or that same digging sound effect for the hundredth time.

Harvest Moon 64 is a game from a series which relies a lot on the general vibe it creates before hooking you with its strangely addictive gameplay for the duration, this magical feeling was certainly present in Harvest Moon - A Wonderful Life from when I played it and it's here too in this title which came before it, not quite in the same way but it's fascinating to see how Natsume managed to grow its unique brand so efficiently within a short space of time before it eventually went the way of iterative serial sequels as the generations went by. In short, this is one of the good ones and it deserves your time if you've never played a title in the series before, plus it's pretty cheap in comparison to taking a chance on one of the more modern, expensive versions of the game which have some redeeming gameplay refinements but are only really worth playing if you can weed out the wheat from the chaff. 

That's it for another edition of VC Weekly which will hopefully return again soon. So until then, enjoy whatever titles you might be playing and Game On!