by Jay "THE FLEA" Wade
There once was a game in the last days of the SNES that made farming into a RPG style game. It was of course Harvest Moon. You play as a young boy who takes over a family farm and has to rebuild it from scratch. Well that young boy has returned to the N64 with Harvest Moon 64. You pretty much do the same as the SNES HM, grow crops to make money, care for livestock and find the girl of your dreams and make her your wife. (how many other games do that?)
You start out with basic farming tools but that will go up levels as you use them and you can buy new tools to help out your farm as the years go by. You must by and keep your cows, sheep, chickens, your horse and your fateful dog feed and healthy. Yes they can get sick and die. You can also breed cows and sheep by using a special potion. (Made from the finest Bulls & Rams) You can also watch TV shows to get tips and weather reports.
You also can attend town events and try and get a girl to like you, or in some cases hate you. there's five single women that our little farm boy could make his wife, but each one has her own likes and dislikes and you could make her dislike you if you do the wrong thing.
There's also a horse and dog track to race your horse/dog or just make bets. (You'll lose the farm in no time.) The Graphics are old RPG style and kind of look like Fisher Price little people. The biggest complaint on HM64 is the overall world map, it's VARY small. You can go to your farm, the town in two parts, a horse ranch the event center and the track that's about it. Another complaint is the amount of time in a day. most of the time you'll never get all the chores done before the day runs out. (oops you forget to feed the cows, now their dead!)
The sound is also not it's best feature, music and sound effects sound as good as the SNES game.
If your thinking this is a RPG with battle systems and defeating a villain that could destroy the world, your totally been mislead. While the graphics, maps, item upgrades, and gameplay is like most RPG's, there really isn't much of a story or and danger of losing the farm.
It's basically; Boy gets farm, Boy raises farm, Boy finds the girl of his dreams. The End.
While there's a lot's of little complaints on HM64, it is quite addicting. Several hours fly by as you raise your little farm and try and keep it going. If your looking for the closest thing to a RPG on the N64 you might want to try Harvest Moon 64. You might find keeping the farm alive as fun as keeping your Characters alive.
PUBLISHER: NATSUME
GRAPHICS: 7 MUSIC & SOUND: 4 CONTROL: 7
SECRETS: 8 ORIGINALITY: 8 FUN & REPLAY: 9
OVERALL: 7
