Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is a farming simulator RPG that was released for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance in late 2003.
Full Review
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town Review
By, Nicholas Bale
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
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You’re back on the farm…again! In what is Natsume’s fifth Harvest Moon release, you are once more taking care of a farm while trying to balance your budget, social life, and even the respect of elves.
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| Harvest Moon‘s story, never being one for depth, is such: As a youth, you spent time with an old man on a farm when your family went to visit him. Well, as many old men do, he dies, leaving the entire farm to you. And there is the entire story. Okay, I know that the basis of this game is farm-managing, but…well, for the fifth installment, could we have just a little story? Please? |
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If you don’t know the premise of the Harvest Moonseries, here it is: You need to take care of a farm by making money and turning it into a nice profitable place. The easiest way to do this is to plant crops, water them everyday, harvest them, and repeat. However, you can also buy chickens that lay eggs everyday, or cows that will give you milk. A recent addition to the series is the ability to buy sheep for their wool.
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| In addition to farming you can also enter the town to socialize with the rest of the town people, women in particular who can eventually fall in love with you and become your wife. Also there are festivals and special occasions that you can attend in which you can win prizes or just have fun. |
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Gameplay differs very little from the original Harvest Moon games, but the developers have seen to it that there are more things to buy, do, and generally just spend your money on. Your tools, for example, can be upgraded four times in order to make them more effective. To upgrade them, you need to mine the ore from the mines, whether it’s bronze, silver, gold, or mystrile. Your house can grow larger, as can your chicken coop and barn (where cows and sheep are kept). Then you can also order things from the Home Shopping Network every Saturday to spruce up your house, or, aid you with cooking.
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| Major Addition #1: Cooking is a new part to the game. You can learn well over a hundred recipes that will allow you to create anything from Curry Fried Rice to Toast (that’s right. You must LEARN how to make toast). It adds such a new level to the game, because to get the recipes, you can watch TV every Tuesday for the Iron Chef show, or you can help others to have them eventually give you a recipe. To cook you need utensils, such as a kitchen which you must order, a stove and pot (also which you must order), and ingredients. Then you must combine the right utensils with the right ingredients, and trust me, it’s difficult. While trial and error is possible (I learned how to make Apple Juice!), it’s near impossible to make some of the harder dishes, such as a Sweet Potato with butter, sugar, and an egg using an oven and a pan. There are just too many combinations. |
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Major Addition #2: Remember the elves from the previous games what would just give you stuff and help you a little bit? In this game they play a much larger role. Each of them has an affection meter for you, and if you raise it high enough by giving them gifts, you will be able to get them to do your work for you. This means mega bucks, trust me. For example, let’s say you have 60 crop squares to water. Now, if you try doing all the watering yourself, you’ll be exhausted by the time you’re finished (which will be sometime in the PM). However, get two elves to do it, run off and chat with the locals, gather some supplies from the forest, and it might be done by the time you return. This means 60+ crops will be ready to harvest, and that’s a lot of money, trust me. This added such a new level of playability to the game, because in the previous ones, you always got a massive amount of land, but you never ever had the time to use it all. Now you can.
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| The control scheme for the GBA is a lot more difficult to get used to. Because of the limited number of buttons, many controls are a combination of two buttons, such as L and B to eat something (or switch tools, depending on what you’re holding), L and Select to open a map, etc. It’s more to learn, if you’re just coming from the old Harvest Moon games, but in time, they become second nature. |
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Music. Now, I don’t think Harvest Moon has ever been well known for its musical scores. I don’t think this one will be any different. There’s a tune for the seasons, one for the town, one for festivals…and that is probably it, except for special things like the title screen. Now, don’t get me wrong, the music isn’t bad. I found myself humming a few tunes.
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| My biggest problem with the game? Well, there are certain places in the game in which I felt that the developers didn’t feel like problem testing. There are spelling mistakes in many areas of the game, and there is even an entire line of dialogue that is untranslated from Japanese (talk to the guy who picks up your harvest as he is leaving your farm)! Now, it doesn’t really detract from gameplay, but the game could have been better had these areas been given more attention. |
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Inevitably, I bet you that if you haven’t played any game in this series, you’ll be asking yourself why you should try a game about farming. Farming is dull, tedious work, yes, I know. So why should a game be made about it? I don’t know. Because it’s fun. It defies logic. This game is enjoyable, plain and simple. You’ll find yourself wanting to play just another day before you turn off your GBA. You’ll want to do just a couple more things. Just a couple more…and that too…why not that as well…and you’ll just keep playing. I’ve enjoyed every Harvest Moon so far. This one, in my opinion, is the best of the series. It keeps to the original formula, deviating just enough to make it new. Also, it’s portable, which is a major plus, because I often find myself playing a day or two (gametime) here and there. If you haven’t played a Harvest Moon yet, this is the one to get.
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