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Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming

by Lauren Ronaghan - June 4, 2009, 11:31 am EDT
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A new Harvest Moon puzzle game appears quite promising.

Natsume brings Harvest Moon back to the handheld puzzle game market with a new release, Frantic Farming. I personally did not play Puzzle de Harvest Moon only because I read the reviews and decided I would be better off. Therefore, I’m unfortunately unable to let you all know if this is a vast improvement of its predecessor or not. Frantic Farming takes Island of Happyness as a source of inspiration, but this time there are far too many crops for the poor island to handle. As the story progresses, twelve characters get unlocked who not only further the story, but are also playable characters.

The point of the game is very easy once you get started. There is a series of video tutorials which are literally step by step, and, in my opinion, as helpful as they are annoying. They are led by Taro, who tells you how to start the game, how to move the Harvest Sprite, the difference between the four seedlings, and how to win the game. First of all, there are five different levels of ground which all progress by being watered by the sprite after he picks up a harvested plant. The first is plain dirt, which grows into a seedling, then a sprout, then a plan, and finally a harvestable product. The Harvest Sprite can only move by picking up a harvestable product, like lettuce, corn, a radish, an eggplant, or a tomato. If there is nothing next to the Sprite, he cries until you drag one over to him. There are also obstacles in the form of rocks which fall from the sky and land on your plants. They are not too bad though, as they can be moved around the screen with the Stylus as well be broken by being watered. There are also power-ups, and the one that I experienced involved a girl screaming “CHICKENS!” and a load of chickens running across the screen. While this was really confusing, it was really helpful because they broke the majority of the rocks on my screen at the time, which was a lot. Generally, the level is complete when you reach the desired score.

There are four ways to play the game: Story, Score, Mission, and Free Match. In Story, you “take your favorite character on a puzzle adventure.” In Score, you try to achieve the highest score. In Mission, you “complete specific goals such as harvesting a particular crop or clearing a field.” Free Match is where you can play against three CPUs or battle friends over local Wi-Fi. The really nice thing about that is your friends don’t need to own the game to be able to play with you, just like in Mario Kart.

I really enjoyed playing Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming because it combines two things that I love: Harvest Moon and puzzle games. An added bonus is that I had never played a game like this before. An aspect which could be either good or bad is that if you set it up right, the game actually could play itself because the Harvest Sprite moves automatically as long as there is a harvestable crop next to him. The music is also rather enjoyable, but the noise effects in the video tutorials were not. I also look forward to knowing more about the storyline, which talked about a glowing tower when I was playing it. Expect to see this game on the shelves this July.

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Genre Puzzle
Developer

Worldwide Releases

na: Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming
Release Aug 2009
PublisherNatsume
RatingEveryone
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