You would think that a game about looking after livestock, growing vegetables and working the land with a pickaxe would be incredibly boring but somehow Natsume made a game that makes farm life downright addictively entertaining. The Harvest Moon series has come a long way since its SNES beginnings and, having appeared on most of Nintendo’s different consoles and handhelds, the series continues to bring fans its delightful farming simulator on the Nintendo DS with Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness.
Like past games in the Harvest Moon series, Island of Happiness contains something of a story. You start the game by choosing between a male or female character and following him or her as you board a ship on your way to an unknown destination. Suddenly, a storm tosses the ship around until you are thrown into sea. You wake up to find yourself washed up ashore on a mysterious island that has long been abandoned by its last residents. Yet you are not alone on the island since survivors of the same shipwreck start their new life on the island. Therefore, it is up to you to take control of the island’s only ranch and make it productive once again.
As you work the land, the other survivors form a community that suddenly grows when word gets around that the island has once again become inhabited. Soon enough, the deserted island becomes a thriving village with shops and various citizens. As a farmer, you grow crops and raise livestock so your kindly neighbors can sell what you produce. It’s a rather solitary life of plowing the field, planting various seeds and tending to the animals, you’ll procure from the livestock store. Thankfully, the island comes with helpful sprites and even a pond that happens to be home to a Harvest Goddess that will lend you a hand if you make the right offering.
Island of Happiness doesn’t do anything completely new to the series so veteran Harvest Moon fans will find returning favorite features such as a farm chores, community interaction and even finding that special someone to marry and start a family with when farm life becomes to overwhelming. The only difference between playing as a male or female character is the choices of mates. Of course, if you play as a male, you will get a choice of six different island girls to try to woo and if you play as a girl, you will try to make impression on eligible bachelors. You’ll be offering potential mates presents and going out with them during seasonal events in order to marry them and - later - have children that will inherit the farm.
As I mentioned earlier, gamers new to the series might think that pulling out weeds and clearing debris to plant and then water seeds might seem like a real snooze but it’s actually a surprisingly entertaining simulation of farm life. This formula worked for past Harvest Moon games and it does so on the Nintendo DS with the only exception that the controls just don’t work at all. Island of Happiness utilizes the bottom touch screen for character movement and while that might sound like a brilliant idea it just doesn’t work. You move your character by dragging the Stylus in the direction you would like to move and this makes for some rather clumsy and frustrating movements. Imagine trying to get to a certain spot on time only taking a lot longer thanks to the fact that you have to drag your character around slowly and you’ll see how frustrating movement can be in this game.
Picking up objects and planting crops are also awkward mainly because you have to tap the object or plot where you would like to plant with the Stylus. The touch screen mini-games fair a bit better during certain events but other than that the controls hold back the fun considerably. Unfortunately, there is no control option that switches the controls to the D-pad so you are stuck with the touch screen actions. What the game does right is the Wi-Fi connectivity that allows you to go online and compete against other farmers in the game. Other than that, it’s clear that Natsume has a long way to go in making the Harvest Moon series work for the DS.
On the visual front, the game looks decent enough and retains that old school quality of past games in the series. Now, this isn’t a bad thing but change is definitely something that should be considered seeing as the DS is more than capable of displaying some impressive graphics. Still, the backgrounds remain colorful and the characters are still cute as a button. The game’s soundtrack is still lively and this time around the sound effects are nicely detailed to the point that you’ll make out every sound around you.
As a big fan of Natsume’s Harvest Moon series, Island of Happiness for the Nintendo DS is a major disappointment. We can forgive the fact that the game hasn’t changed much - even on a new handheld platform - but we can’t forgive the awful touch-screen controls or lack of innovative touches that could have made this Harvest Moon a delightful treat for DS owners. Alas, there’s very little here to recommend to any loyal fan of this beloved series. Here’s hoping the next offering will be a lot better than this on the DS.
| Review Scoring Details for Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness |
Gameplay: 5.5
On paper the touch-screen controls sound like a great idea but they are not implemented well here. In fact, movement becomes rather irritatingly clumsy to the point that you’ll take longer to do most of your chores than usual. All of the usual Harvest Moon goodies are present and accounted for in Island Happiness.
Graphics: 6.0
Visually, the game isn’t bad to look at but this game could have looked a lot better considering the fact that the DS can display some impressive graphics. The dated visuals might still look cute and colorful but we would have appreciated some updated graphics for the DS.
Sound: 6.5
The game’s sound does a great job of placing you in a farm with all those animal sounds and the nightly cricket chirps. Even the soundtrack is endearing and doesn’t get old despite the fact that it recycles itself. I wish there were voices to accompany the characters’ dialogue, though.
Difficulty: Medium
Taking care of a farm and the livestock is no small task and the fact that you’ll be performing a slew of chores makes your daily life seem very full. Growing crops and taking care of your animals is a challenge but not as much as finding a mate and keeping him or her happy.
Concept: 5.5
While it’s quite demanding, the farming life is still downright fun and satisfying. There are some good characters to interact with and courting the opposite sex to start your own family is back again. Unfortunately, the touch screen actions are horrible and distract from what could have been yet another good entry in the series.
Multiplayer: 5.0
Through a Wi-Fi connection you can go online to see how well you do against other players as well as compete against another player for pure bragging rights.
Overall: 5.5
Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness is not an unplayable game by any means but the horrible controls simply keep it from being a fun game. If you can look past the flawed touch screen controls, there is a fun farming simulator that isn’t short on all the things we love about the Harvest Moon series.
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