Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (Gamecube) Review

This newly released Game Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is back on GameCube. (Also released for GBA.) In this Game you`re a farmer which when you first start the Game you start with one Cow which Takakura gives you your first Cow. The farm has been past down to you to look after and produce Crops and breed Animals. In the Game there are 4 seasons, known as Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each season is 10 days and in each season different things happen like different plants grows and fruits and vegetables can only be grown in certain seasons. Every minute on the Game is one second in our time, so that means 60 of our seconds equal up to 1 hour on the game, and 24 hours is one whole day.

A bloke called Van comes on the 3rd and 8th every season but sometimes he comes on the 4th. Van opens up a store on these days where you can Buy & Sell some things. The money is known as Gold on this Game. Later on in the Game the guy Takakura gives you a horse that he ordered. From him you can order Cows, Sheep, Chickens, Tools, Buildings, and Animal Products. Also later on in the Game there are 3 selections of marriage. To get one of these Girls to like you, you must do certain things which gives you hearts and when you get 4 hearts which is the max you should propose to her to marry her. To propose to a girl, during a game you get a Blue Feather which allows you to propose to her.

Graphics: The Graphics on this Game are excellent. The character models look nice, so does the textures on the game. The whole valley where you live looks fine. The Buildings, Grass, Trees, Plants and Water are creatively incredible. The Animal models looks so realistic it just makes you feel like you have been dragged in to the game. The lighting and Shading inside and outside buildings look great. The Graphics of the fruit and vegetables look awesome. Also the shape and the look of the Tools that you use in the Game look like real ones in real life.

Sound: The Sound in this Game is extordinary. There isn`t much different music, it`s mainly the Animal Sound effects that makes it feel like realistic sounds. When the Horse is galloping or trotting it makes realistic sound as a real Horse would. Basically all the other Animals do realistic sound like the Cows, Sheep, Chickens even the dog and cat and all other Animals. The problem is that there would only be a couple of tunes in the Game which doesnt make it as good.

Gameplay: The Gameplay of this Game is really good. The Controls are as follow: A can open doors, select stuff in menus, pick up stuff like fruit and veggies etc, put down stuff, talk to people and animals. Y is basically just for eating food, but you have to be holding the food when you press Y otherwise it doesn`t work. X opens up your items that you are holding, and it can also put away the items that you are holding on you at that moment. B cancels stuff in the menu, and later on in the game when you get married and have your child you can put your child on the ground by press B. Now to the L & R buttons, the L button only puts the camera view behind you where as the R button you can call your Dog or Horse. To call your Dog press R once, and to call your Horse press R twice. We all know what Start does, start just opens up the menu and you can view items and other info.

So basically you just start up the Game and go to New Game and get it all set up and meet everyone in the valley. You get one Cow to start off with, and then later on you get a Horse. You got to look after all the Animals you own, and when you grow crops, you have to grow them in the one season otherwise they don`t grow properly. But that is only for certain seeds in certain seasons.

If you don`t look after your Animals properly they`ll die, and if there sick you need to quickly order some Animal Medicine to cure it. Breeding is done with a Male & Female, so a Cow & a Bull can make a calf, you can also breed the Chooks. When you get Eggs from the Chooks, they are either fertilized or non-fertilized. The Eggs have to be fertilized if you want to hatch little chicks otherwise the non-fertilized Eggs you pretty much either just sell it for 40G (Gold) or eat it. It takes 5 days to hatch a Chick and 5 days for it to fully grow. Trust me, getting Chooks will get you a bit of money. It`s just the trouble of feeding them all the time, but thats when you sell them.

Lastability: Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is pretty much the longest Game for GameCube that I know of, 1 year would take you hours to do because of all the stuff you need to do, like look after your animals. This Game consists of 50 Hours plus. The Game is so addictive that youll be so glued to it that you won`t realize how many hours you`ve actually played it for. You pretty much cant finish the game, as it keeps going on and on. You will never get bored of this Game because on a daily schedule you have to keep on track whether your animals are healthy and feed them, and produce your crops.

Features:

• Your own Farm.
• New Marriage System.
• You can have a child.
• Managing and Breeding Animals.
• Game lasts for ages.
• Different sorts of Fruit & Veggie Crops.Final thoughts: This Game is excellent, I strongly recommend you buy this Game straight away, it will last you ages in fact that you dont even know. This is one of the best Games released on GameCube. BUY NOW!
  

  Graphics 9.0

  Gameplay 9.0

  Sound 9.9

  Tilt 9.9

  Value 9.0