PixlBit

So for this year, my gaming resolution is to beat atleast 1 game a month. Im starting the year with Harvest Moon apparently. This was a shock for me too.

So to start, Harvest Moon is not excatly like it was back in the day. Harvest moon is now Natsumes actual farming title. It used to be the Bokujo Monogatari series but Story of Seasons took that over. Natsume held the rights to the name Harvest Moon so the series had to get a name change. Natsume started their own series off with Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. Ill sum it up: It was not a good game. Certainly was diffferent because they mixed Minecraft with the Harvest Moon farming formula but it fell flat. I actually thought they wouldnt continue, they proved me fucking wrong. They eventually announced Skytree Village and while I wasnt super excited I wasnt overally worried either because it looked like they had made improvements. Well it was on sale last month so I decided to give it a chance and I was....pleasently surprised. Its not a bad game! I actually have good things to say about it. Wow.

Farming wise, its pretty simple and in a sense unique. Your farming area is huge, especially once you complete the story to the game. They also brought back being able to change the layout to the land like in TLV. They added a extra perspective mode that makes it extremly easy to do the terraforming though. Tools have upgrades, THANK THE DAMN GODDESS FOR THAT! TLV got major shit for not having tool upgrades, it made farming hell. Normally season to season you can only grow certain crops. In Skytree, you can plant all the crops in each season, the mutations are what change season to season.  Mutations depend on fertilzer used, season, soil type,  and elevation. Some crops even have several different mutations. Onions for example, they can mutate in Spring on dry soil at medium elevation into Scallions. If you sell 30 to a vendor you will then be able to buy seeds for that specific type. Overall they improved greatly in this area. 

Story is....well....its easy and on the lame side. I know its just harvest moon but even Story of Seasons had an interesting story going on. So when your character shows up the land is dry and dead. However they can magically farm on it and are the chosen one to revive the Skytrees. So throughout the story your assisting the villagers who all just start to pop up has each day goes by and as you assist them the skytrees each start to come back to life. Now this opens up more of your farm land that you can do with how you want. I personally did not do anything major to it during the story part. I had only 1 barn and 1 area I used for my crops. Once you finish the story and revive the land you will be able to upgrade your house and get married. I have not done this yet, so I cant say much about it. There is 3 bachelors and 3 bachelorettes to choose from unless you buy the 2 they have since released as DLC. Not completely connected to the story but still apart of it are the festivals. Sadly its lacking in that department, they didnt put many in each season and 2 to begin with are repeated each time.

Also the characters for the game are interesting and unique, I think they did a pretty alright job with filling the game with different characters that make the village interesting. 

Pros

Unique Crop system, Tool upgrades, Terraforming Improved, Characters are interesting

Cons

Not many festivals, Story is lacking, Bachelors/ Bachelorettes as DLC, Not Many Custimaztions Options 

Overall this was a nice relaxtion title, Id recommend it picking it up if you like games like this if you see it for 20$ or less. I payed 23$ and I dont regret it. Ill continue playing it on and off, however I need to focus more on some of my other games I need to finish. Score wise Id give it a B-