Though I was one of the few who was excited for the original Harvest Moon when it came out, this is a genre that I only [i]occasionally[/i] enjoy. Regardless of the fact that I'm not quite the target audience for this, I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. What first sucked me in was the aesthetic; the color palette reminded me a little of Ooblets, but I didn't see [i]this[/i] developer acting like an aggressive jerk, so I gladly handed over my money. With the cute looks, the solid customization options, and enjoyable facial expressions, it truly is a great-looking game, but what I wasn't prepared for was how lovely the lighting engine is; it's genuinely one of the better ones I've seen in a game, with a spot-on representation of how sunlight looks at different times of the day.
The gameplay has a lot of the usuals: gardening, animal husbandry, fishing, mining, and even a little logging, and it all works just fine; there's a good balance of things to do from day to day, so you can switch things up if you want to. You also interact with townspeople, who have the usual tasks they require of you, but get friendly enough, and they'll teach you how to brew new potions. The potions are a really neat idea, and not only are they useful, but you can ship three out daily for a pretty decent profit. Money can be a bit slow to obtain, but mostly because there's a greater focus on crafting and resources. As a hoarder of all things consumable, I didn't think I'd like this at first, but it does a much better job of keeping flow; usually, it doesn't take long to make so much money that it trivializes the entire rest of a game like this, and you're left looking for things to do as you run out the clock to the ending (if there is one), but that doesn't happen here. If you want to collect everything and completely fill out your farm, no worries there, either, because once you get the main ending, very profitable new avenues open right up to speed up your progress. There are a few slower spots, but you have the mysterious forest and mine to complete while you're gathering up what you need to finish your next story quest. Even the random artifacts that you dig up can be obtained pretty easily and reliably with the right potions.
The writing was pretty good overall, too. The plot was a little silly, but the tone was consistent; it didn't have wild shifts that ruined the overall mood. The characters had a pretty decent variety of personalities, and since romance with [b]any[/b] of them was an option, this provides nice, broad appeal. I had no problem making my choice of wifey, but there were a few solid contenders to start, and some genuine character development as you get closer to some of them. I would have liked a little more development of the relationship between characters, but this is my curse: I always fixate on the relationships, but I don't like Visual Novels or Dating Sims; that's very much a me problem.
If you're into this sort of thing, give this one a shot; I'm not even [i]that[/i] into this sort of thing, and I enjoyed it a great deal!
