Harvest Moon: One World- What to Expect?
Harvest Moon is one of the famous titles when you think of Farm Simulation Games, and with its latest release Harvest Moon: One World, you’re in for a ride. Back with features that you all loved, the game attempts to give you the same fun and refreshing vibes similar to the games you enjoyed from past titles.
In Harvest Moon: One World, you can explore a different region and grow different local crops you can’t plant in other regions. You can also experience several other activities you enjoyed in the older titles, such as foraging, mining and even fishing!
However, it seems like the game failed to meet several expectations from its avid fans. Harvest Moon is a reputable farming game. Since it’s coming to a much newer port, there’s a lot of hype built around this famed farming simulation game.
Since its release, many issues just kept piling up as the game ages from days to weeks. From gameplay, story and even the whole graphics, it seems like there’s just something to point at in each game aspect.
Coincidentally, it was released the same month Story of Seasons came out, and only this came earlier. It makes you think that maybe the game was made for the sake of rivaling a competitor or just for the sake of keeping the title alive. It’s sad, but with how bad it became compared to other farming games, you just can’t help but think what could’ve gone wrong in making One World. So before you relive your farming fantasy once more, you need to consider some of the several issues that many players experienced before you.
- Bland and Uninspiring Story Line – Let’s start with the story. You start as a farmer who thrived on eating potatoes with your family. Eventually, you learn the basics of farming, and it starts from that. It’s very uninspiring when you think of it. It’s almost like a kid made up the story, and there’s not much detail poured into it. It’s just you with your fam, and now you learned how to farm.
- Unrealistic Farming Experience – It seems like Harvest Moon: One World forgot about what made it so loved in the first place: being a small farmer who turned a whole field into an empire. While the idea of venturing to several regions and making a whole continent be your farm is quite original, it lost its humble feeling that most players remember from the previous titles. It almost feels like you’re a traveling salesman than being an actual farmer. Why would you pocket your camp and set it again in another region? Cute, but it doesn’t make sense.
- Massive Map, Lacking Appeal – Furthermore, these regions’ paths do not give much of an impression. It’s like paths for the sake of connection, and it doesn’t have much of an appeal. For a game that explores one region to another, it would cool to see a gradual transition. Unfortunately, like what’s said, the paths are just for the sake of having them. Even little details like these matter sometimes. If done right, it will definitely make the gaming experience much more memorable.
- Either way, there’s also a machine that teleports you from one place to another. That can help you save time if you’re playing in a rush. For people who actually want to seek adventure, that feels like a cheat. But yeah, regardless of whether you want to teleport or not, foot exploration doesn’t feel fun, unlike the trek you can experience in older games such as Tales of Two Towns.
- Goddess, Where Art Thou? – The Harvest Goddess has been a staple in almost all games. However, it seems like she skipped this game for unknown reasons. It’s kinda weird because, in a game with different cultures, there should be at least one section where she appears. It would’ve been cool to see her in different styles since there’s more than one region in this game. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of her at all. Hopefully, in later updates, she can make her way back because it’s sort of fun offering random things to her and see her reaction from one present to another.
- Glitches Everywhere – Lastly, it’s infested with unwanted glitches that deeply affected everyone’s gameplay. Some players are willing to ignore minor bugs, especially if they don’t really matter that much, but it keeps you from having a smooth experience; it’s just right to call the game out for it. Thankfully, early players spotted these glitches and reported them as soon as they can. There were patches released in hopes to fix it but, sometimes it makes you wonder how did it reach release without fixing these issues in the first place.
Conclusion – It’s truly upsetting to see Harvest Moon take this rocky path. It wasn’t as fresh and warm as the other titles anymore, making it seem like the game is nothing but a name that Natsume owns. It’s a heartless game lacking so much in creativity as if it’s made to rival Story of Seasons, which is just sad. It actually has the making of a good game since farming in different biomes is innovative. Still, it’s not as polished as it seems. At least, the rival tried to make it more fun despite the setbacks, but Natsume didn’t even try at all.
Ultimately, it will be hard to find positives to recommend this game because it’s just going to be a waste of money on your end as a consumer. There’s no point in buying a game that’s just going to disappoint you, and it will also be a waste of time to try to love something that wasn’t made with love in the first place.
If you haven’t played any Harvest Moon games, though, this could be a great entry point. It’s not completely unplayable anyway. Suppose you’re looking for a casual farming game for that purpose alone, without actually minding the story and everything else. In that case, One World is worth the try. It’s just that several fans who played the game for years set an expectation that, hopefully, the new game will exceed its predecessors’ quality.
Regardless of the several complaints that pulled it down to the depths of hell, there’s hope that maybe it will improve someday. Who knows? Harvest Moon: One World can still find a way to be playable with future updates and patches in the future.
