HipPiTy Farm

I love the fact that you can customise your farm in Harvest Moon to give names to all of your animals at birth. With names, your animals, especially the cows and sheep, become like friends that you greet each day by name. I have not sold any animals yet in Boy and Girl, but in Innocent life, when you sold an animal, you were asked "If you sell Daisy the cow, you will never see her again, are you sure you want to continue?" This almost had me in tears the first time I read it, and I didn't go through with the sale! However in Innocent Life, you did not have the option to give your animals personal names, instead you had to choose one from a list. Being a vegetarian, and an animal lover, I love this aspect of Harvest Moon.
In Boy & Girl I have personalized my animals in the following way:

Farm: HipPiTy farm
Farmer: Shaggy
Dog: NiKs
Horse: PIkwIk *
Sheep: ShaWn, WooLard*, YarNaRd*, LaMbERt*, BaaBAra*, FleeCi**
Cows: TriXsY, DikXi *, LiKxI **, PiKxi **, FiKxi **, WiKxi **, RiKxi **, BiKxi **
Chickens: ChuCki, CLuk*, CHooKi, CheePa, KliKi *, ChUkXI *, ChIkXi *, ChUnKi *, RooSta *, HeNRi **

Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl

Well, I was so enthralled by playing Innocent Life, intrigued by all the Harvest Moon's fan sites, and curious that I purchased Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl also for the PSP. This was the only other Harvest Moon title for the PSP, and was rather difficult to find. I eventually tracked it down in a specialist gameshop in The Hague. I had not yet finished playing Innocent Life so the game remained on my bookshelf.....

Then came the bombshell, my PSP fell to the floor one day whilst charging the battery! The UMD no longer worked, and thus I could no longer play games at all. I was heartbroken. Fortunately I had just completed Innocent Life before the accident, and was busy redoing certain scenes trying to improve my livestock's heart levels, so I did not really have unfinished work.

As it so turned out, the old version of the PSP that I had (thick and heavy) was no longer available in the stores due to the impending release of the new Slim and Light version. I duely placed an pre-order for the new version and got myself a good book to read in the train while I counted the days to the release.

Eventually, The All New Slimmer, Lighter, more plasticy PSP came out and I was able to play Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl. I certainly was not disappointed. I found out why some of the older Harvest Moon fans didn't like Innocent Life. Innocent Life, whilst it has superb graphics and was amazing for me, lacks the complexity of the previous titles in the genre. Its storyline is quite fixed, and it is difficult to stray too far from the plot. Being a human robot, you did not get to marry or have romantic interactions with the villagers, something that was new and interesting to me in Boy & Girl.

I have now been playing Boy and Girl for about a month-and-a-half now and am fully engrosed in it. I am loving the romantic aspects of the game. Karen is my favourite girl and she has a purple heart for me, Ann is in love with me and has a blue heart. I will have to see which one I eventually marry!

Later on I indend to post on further developments in this game, interesting tales from HiPiTy farm, and other Harvest Moon titbits.

Harvest Moon: Innocent Life

Harvest Moon is a series of games that I have discovered in the last few months. I was in despair, I could find no games that I liked to play on my PSP. I must say though, that I am quite fussy when it come to games. Racing games bore me, shoot 'em ups with blood, gore and huge weapons of mass destruction are way to violent for my pacifist tendencies, sport games are not worth the effort, that leaves very little else, that isn't aimed at pre-pubescent children. When I found the game Innocent Life: a futuristic Harvest Moon, the blurb on the back of the box had me hooked...

Till the rough soil and grow crops on your land!
Raise a selection of different farm animals!
Explore the near future world of Heartflame Island!
Meet new people and make friends in the town!

I bought the game and immediately fell in love with it after the first minute of playing. Finally a game where you do not have to kill or destroy anything, on the contrary, you have to rebuild and grow. You have to be kind and considerate, amicable and thrifty, manage your time and resources to gain maximum rewards, be those jewels, happy cows or upgraded tools. The graphics are wonderful and Natsume and Rising Star Games really did well with this game. That is, in my humble opinion, many reviews on the Internet rated it poorly, but these misguided folk probably love killing, blood, war and weapons, and are too uncultured to have picked up on the finer points of this game.

The philosophy behind the game deals with man's relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. The way we treat Mother Nature, and the way modern man, races towards mass production and automation, without considering the destructive impacts he is having. It reminds us of our place on this Earth, and our role as temporary caretakers of the planet. The dialogue in the game, can often be read on many levels as the game is designed for ages 7 and older however, some of its themes are quite mature. To complete the game totally, and extract maximum pleasure, is a task that I enjoyed doing. It whiled away many hours whilst I sat in the train on a daily commute, and, provided an escape from the hubbub of the morning and evening rush hour. In my attempt to play the game to its utmost, I did turn to help from fellow players, one in particular, Freyashawk. She writes guides for Harvest Moon games, and is herself a great fan of the genre, for there are many more Harvest Moon games apart from Innocent Life. Her extremely well written guide(s) provided more insight and value into the game. I did not follow her walk-through to the letter, but extracted many useful answers to questions I had. Her guides are indeed well worth the time to read. It is evident that she invests much time in writing them.

If you are feeling like there is nothing good left in this world, try playing Harvest Moon, It'll certainly bring peace to your heart and a smile to your face, it did to mine!