Quick! Somebody call Scotland Yard! Natsume is beating you to death with their “latest” Harvest Moon release! Yes, like a baby seal in the arctic you seem to have no choice but to lie perfectly still (or move about cutely as possible) as Natsume unleashes yet ANOTHER re-release of a “popular” game, this time for the PS2... Of course it could be worse (better depending on your taste), this could be a first look at Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life Xtreme Beach Farming Edition for the Xbox.

Of course the way I review you’d think the only thing Natsume did was Harvest Moon… not so.
Though I had to check Natsume’s website for information on this game to come to this conclusion, Natsume does do other games… most of which I never heard of except for two other genres they seem to love.
1) Harvest Moon (duh), 2) Medabots (the little spoken of Anime/Manga that fizzled out and hasn’t been spoken of in sometime) and 3) Bass Fishing… yeah, Bass Fishing.
Anyway (cough) back to Harvest Moon, as in why a PS2 Harvest Moon. Why? Well, because Natsume has finally realized that they can’t make a fortune on their “Wonderful Life” game if not enough people own a GameCube (which not enough people do), so they (like CAPCOM) have decided to port their big gun game (in this game Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life) over to the PS2 in hopes of hooking a larger fanbase into buying into this re-re-re-release of their 2004 hit. Which means no, you will not be forgetting “Forget-Me-Not Valley” anytime soon. Natsume won’t let you. So without further ado I introduce to you the game.

From the makers of Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life (GameCube), Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life Player’s Choice Edition (GameCube), Harvest Moon : Another Wonderful Life (GameCube), Harvest Moon : Special Victims Unit, Harvest Moon : Criminal Intent, Harvest Moon Osaka, Harvest Moon Okinawa, CSI : Harvest Moon and Survivor : Forget-Me-Not Valley comes Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life Special Edition for the PS2. Yeah. You’re sick of it by now, aren’t you. Sorry, this is your first look… for the second time.

Yeah, yeah, the last time Natsume attempted to bring you Harvest Moon for the PS2 the game was not exactly what I call quality gameplaying… lest we forget the (bleep)tascular nightmare that is Harvest Moon : Save the Homeland. But somehow I think this time they might bring out a game that might not suck, for once, and might actually make you love playing Harvest Moon on a PS-anything all over again (which hasn’t happened since Back to Nature for the PSOne).

So what is the game about? Obviously it’s going to be the same game (more or less, hopefully less) as the GameCube version since Natsume has been rather lazy as of late… otherwise we wouldn‘t have been straddled with “Another Wonderful Life“... anyway

to prove it’s the same old same old here, fresh from the Playstation site, is a brand new intro… sorta.
“Wholesome farming lasts a lifetime in the coastal village of Forget-Me-Not Valley. It's a peaceful place where you cultivate friendships and raise a family among your crops and prize-winning livestock. The living isn't always easy, but it's certainly rewarding if you're willing to work hard and make the right choices for your spouse, child and pastoral acreage. Your decisions plant the seeds of your destiny and shape your offspring's future! You create the happy ending in this game!”
And that is about all the information they provided. Sure there’s an official site and all but… well… OK twist my arm let’s go visit it and see what else we can learn about it.

However, before we go, let’s see what we do know about the game just from the fact that it is a port of the original GameCube version of the game. Well, to start off with, if you played the original GameCube version, played the Player’s Choice re-release, or played the sequel which is actually a re-re release with a female character then you know what is expected of you. Farm, harvest, raise animals, make friends, get married and raise child into something. Easy, right? Well, not that easy but you get the point.
You think Natsume would get the point though, since after churning out the same game over and over again you think they’d realize the de-sensitivity people are having towards this game. Heck, sooner or later players might finally have a Harvest Moon Breakdown from seeing ANOTHER “Wonderful Life” game… next thing you know your trippin’, and you swear everytime you walk through town you see Jimmy Stewart running through the village screaming something about a Savings & Loan, and a Theater and something about a Mr. Potter…

Still since it IS a complete port from Nintendo to Sony we’re going to have some changes, which is inevitable especially when you consider the first and most pressing change : the ability to link with the excellent Friends of Mineral Town game on the GBA.
Obviously you can’t link your GBA to the PS2 since they’re competing systems, which means no link info will be passed between games… so then what? Somehow I don’t think Sony is going to bother whipping up a Back to Nature port for the PS2 to take advantage of the link ability originally from the GameCube version, especially since I don’t even know if the PS2/PSP are link capable to begin with!
That being said how will the problem of “Mineral Town” be solved?

One possibility is that the game will actually feature Mineral Town. This time out they may make it possible to really travel to Mineral Town and really go shopping there, and interact with the characters there. That might be one possibility. And since this is the PS2 we’re talking

about we might have the power capable to do just that from this system. Another possibility is that they’re going to ax Mineral Town altogether, and the path up to Mineral Town will vanish from this game. That might be a more plausible possibility but only time, and this release, will tell which way they go on that.

Another is mention of “Prize winning livestock”. Now in past Harvest Moon games that equaled festivals, which is something that is sorely lacking in the GameCube version (decent festivals).
Now if it is possible to have “Prize winning livestock” that must mean they’re going to hold festivals during the year for said “prize winning livestock”. This, of course, means that you’ll need an area to hold festivals in (which again was lacking in the GameCube version). One likely scenario will be having a new festival grounds where the road to Mineral Town used to be in the GameCube version. This will, if it proves to be true, more than make up for a lack of a link thing since it means you’ll have festivals (finally) in this game!

Another possibility is a chance to raise a daughter, again missing from the GameCube versions.
So far all of the GameCube versions has had sons only, not once (be it original or Player’s Choice re-release) has there been a chance for a girl being born… until maybe now. Lord knows just having male children over and over again kind of sucks.
And, yes, there doesn’t seem to be a male/female option in this game so there might be a possibility of seeing (sadly) “Another Wonderful Life Special Edition” in your future. Not to say it’ll happen, but it might happen… though somehow I think by the time they get enough PS2 sales to warrant “Another Wonderful Life” being ported to the PS2 they’ll have gotten the rights to “Song of Symphony” and probably wouldn’t need to port it… though if you do see it get the Special Edition treatment remember I warned you.

Otherwise the game doesn’t look too different than the original. Of course they’ll need to revamp the control systems since the PS2 controller sports more buttons than the GameCube controller, and they’ll need to settle the whole “Mineral Town” thing as well as maybe some other things of contention (TV shows, recipes, the “mine”, the Harvest Goddess and more) but once I see the actual game for myself I’ll let you know if this port is a hit or miss… soon.

Until then don’t worry! At least it’s not Harvest Moon : Save the Homeland Special Edition… though I shouldn’t mention that again lest I give them ideas… Ok, now let’s go see the official site info.

Here’s what else I could find out about the game from the official site. First the stuff that might not be new.
- “Carefully nurture better grades of produce or create your own hybrids.”
And this differs from

the grading slash hybrid system from the original in WHAT way? Doesn’t sound like there’s anything new here… but then again that’s just first impressions so -- still, it doesn’t sound new.
- More interaction with neighbors and their children… does this mean there’ll be more marriages and more children being born (ala Harvest Moon 64 and probably Harvest Moon : Back to Nature)? That might actually be new if that means there’ll be more babies being born in the town ala previous Harvest Moons.
- Yes, hybrid crops. Obviously an important thing since they noted it twice… though not a new thing since they had that in both GameCube versions of the Wonderful Life series.

And now what might be new.
- One additional new girl to court into marriage, bringing the eligible female count up to four. Now, mind you, this does not say whether female #4 is a new character or just a previously seen character now eligible for marriage… lord knows it could be the little girl in the mansion on top of the hill then you’d be robbin’ the cradle… but then again this IS an E for Everybody game so I seriously doubt it.
- Contests (festivals) for cattle, sheep, chickens and…?
Does this mean the return of horse racing? Cow Contests? Sheep Contest? Sumo Chickens? Eh? Ah, I don’t think I talked about that festival/contest yet… basically you have an event with the chickens similar to sumo wrestling only instead of the chickens attacking each other they scare each other out of the ring by clucking loudly on command at the other (which is harder than it sounds).
If this means the return of festivals of old then that is a most welcome addition to the new game. Also this would go a long way to explaining what’ll happen to the road to Mineral Town (since there’ll be no way to link to a GBA in this version, making the road useless). If they are going to add festivals the “road to Mineral Town” might now serve as the path to the festival grounds, but that’s only speculation on my part.
- Finally. A chance to raise either a boy OR a girl… really! You think after so many versions they’d get tired of the old sexist first born being a male child thing.

Of course it’ll still be another “Another Wonderful Life” with a light slathering of gameplay coating over the same old same old system of before, so if you wasn’t enamored to death with the previous versions of the game, or ain’t a big fan of Harvest Moon to begin with then you ain’t getting this one.
But you can expect a full review of the game once I get ahold of it in the near future. Why? ‘Cause I seem to like to punish myself, that and I reviewed every other Harvest Moon game so why not. One more time.