harvest moon just got complicated for me suddenly

@v@ so much that I suddenly need to get done and all these new things that are open for me to use

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

I think I’ve played enough of the game to safely do a mini review!

To start off I am very surprised with how quickly I was able to jump into this game and get the mechanics down right away, usually I am the first to go “this game is annoying and I don’t get it.” and it takes me a week or so to get used to it. But I find this game to be rather easy to figure out.

So the things that I love about this game~ I love the character designs and personalities, even if a lot of them are very rude when you first meet them, mostly the boys. There is also a bit of character development which you don’t see in a lot of harvest moon games. You have people who are a little mean at first but once you get to know them more they open up and blossom into a kind little flower, you also have someone who is very shy and once you befriend her she opens up a bit more.

Making money is fairly easy and everything you need to progress in the game is cheap, but it’s all released in chunks so you end up spending more than you’d think. I actually really like this system and it’s obvious that this is what they were going for. You save up all this gold and then spend a small amount like 2500 on several different buildings and items so you end up spending a lot more than you’d planned, but you’re so excited about the new people moving in and the new animals and crops to raise that you really don’t care, you just want to see new faces.

The music is also very lovely! it’s reminiscent of (More) Friends of Mineral Town, which is easily one of my top favorite hm games. The map and atmosphere is also very similar. The nostalgia I feel playing this game makes me want to play MFoMT all over again.

I also love the blueprint system! Instead of throwing you into this flourishing town full of people you start off with about 4 villagers and having to build new houses to get the people to move in, so you get super anxious to build houses/shops to see new characters.

I also adore how you get to customize the entire town. You can put any building where you want as well as other various items to make your very own dream town.
and of course the fact you get to customize your own character as well is a very nice thing!

There is actually a lot more than just that to love about this game but I’m really excited to get to the negatives, no idea why.

First thing I really don’t like about this game is the bag system(s). There are two way to access the bag; the easy click of a button fun way, and the gross non-fun menu way. Now I wouldn’t complain if you could use the easy way to access every item you’re carrying, but you can’t, you can only access your tool items (hoe, sickle, watering can, hammer, axe, milker, seeds ect.)
Let’s say you just wanted to grab a rock from your bag to give as a gift, you’d have to go to option 2 to access the bag and scroll down through this list of items on your person and find the rock, click it, and select hold, then exit the bag screen. A mini adventure just for a rock! Luckily they give you categories for the items so if you put good use to those tabs unlike myself then I’m sure you find it much easier to search your items.

Another thing I don’t like is how everything you pick up automatically gets put in your bag. Say you found a flower and you quickly wanted to run back to a character and hand it to them as a gift without dealing with the silly menus, well sorry! You can’t do that! You have to go through the menu to grab this item. This is very annoying for lazy people like myself and I really wish they kept the old system where you picked up the item and held it until you pressed a button to put it in your bag.

I also hate the horses. I haven’t bothered to test this out too much but so far the horses annoy me, so much so that I sold it immediately.
In the past you would jump on your horse and it would run like the wind to quicly get you to where you needed to be, not these horses. You jump on it and it starts off in a slow jog and works it’s way to a fast run, but because it starts out so slow by the time you get running you’re already on a new map and have to start the process over again. I’m wondering if this will stop when the horse starts to like you more and it will just start running automatically after you befriend it. But I am not positive on this and they annoy me too much to even try.

The thing I hate most about this game is mining, which has always been my favorite thing in hm. In past harvest moons you could mine for as long as you wanted, if your stamina was kept up anyway. This was very useful in the winter season since there wasn’t much else to find to sell during winter. In this game you are limited to the amount of items you can mine, like maybe 10 or 15 items a day, 80% of it being stuff you already have a ton of (rocks, bricks, ect.)
Don’t get me wrong though, I understand why they did this. A lot of the ore sells for 4k a piece so if you can mine all day and find a ton of items worth that or more you very much cheat the money system.
I would have much preferred them lower the price of the ore if it meant I could mine for as long as I wanted. I also wish they made finding certain ores easier. took me several days (in game AND real life) to find ONE amethyst for a blueprint. It’s also rather hard to collect silver and gold which you need a ton of for several blueprints, so prepare to play the waiting game.

I think the last thing I really want to complain about is edit mode. When you finish a blueprint you have to place the buildings and decorations yourself. This requires you to go to the map and cut down trees (which is not a bad thing at all! Lots of free lumber to help build your blueprints!) then you must run back to your farm and go to edit mode and place the building, which can be rather difficult at first because you’re very limited with the map space you can work with (but don’t worry! The town map will expand and you’ll have plenty more room later on) but the edit systems put grids on the map and you have to place these buildings in an empty grid size that matches the items grid. This can get complicated if other buildings are too far apart from each other, so your town can be a bit cluttered at first.

Overall though this game is very fun, one of the best harvest moons in my opinion, I recommend it to everyone with a 3DS. It’s weird to get used to at first but once you get the hang of it you’ll feel like a pro in no time.