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Very Cute Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm sorry to say that this is my first Harvest Moon game, beause I love it! I'm not one of those people who likes the most popular games, so I wanted to get somehing a little different. This game was on sale, so I picked it up and loaded it into the Ps2 and began playing. It's an easy game to figure out, but not too easy. After an hour or two, I was addicted. The graphics and songs are very cute and the gameplay has a cute concept. Working your way through the four seasons (summer, wintr, spring, and fall that is) you must purchase, sell, and raise animals, grow and sell crops, develop relationships, and eventually cook up some things in the kitchen. Personally, the cooking is my favorite part. After buying, harvesting, or gathering crops in the forest, you can experiment with different recipes in the kitchen. Eventually, you'll be making yourself eggs for breakfast, soup for lunch, and maybe even some jam or cake for dessert. If you're the type of person who enjoys different and unique games, Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland is for you.

Amazing Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Some people think that this game will be bad. There's only 3 crops, no sheep, no festivals, and you can't get married!
Well, that shouldn't discourage you. Although this may be different than what you're used to, it's nice to have more character interaction! With 9 endings, there's plenty of ways to get to know each character!
I must admit I was skeptical as I popped the game into my PS2., I wondered how it would rank up to HM: BTN, but the graphics just amazed me to start! The view is awesome, and you can ride your horse around town when it can run (pretty cool!)

In other words, if you're a fan of HM, you'll LOVE this game! If you're skeptical, try renting it, but I would recommend buying it!

Only the best game in the WORLD!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: December 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The only reason why people should dislike this game is because they don't understand it, or they don't know how to play. The graphics are much better than all the Harvest Moons before it, and everything looks much more realistic. It IS possible to make your animals happy, but not if you don't know how to get money. You can forage berries, herbs, walnuts, flowers, and much more, and sell them inside the buildings. You can also milk your cows and collect eggs from the animals. But the most fun part of the game is the endings. There are 9 endings to choose from, and you have a year(120 days) to complete one. The endings are the ways you complete the game. They encourage you to build relationships with the characters, who still have birthdays and favorite items. The only fault in Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland is the fact that you can not get married. Overall, this is one of the best games I have ever played.

Not as good as the other Harvest Moons

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: August 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm being a bit hard on this game because I was so disappointed. The other Harvest Moon games were much better as far as game play goes. The graphics were great - the characters looked very cute and childlike, adding to the charm of Harvest Moon. But it was a complete letdown to find that as soon as you "save the homeland" the year starts over back in spring (no matter what day of year it is) and no one in town seems to remember who you are. If you had a love interest, forget it. You have to introduce yourself to her all over again. So the idea of family life is squashed. Each time you save the town you get a new icon displayed on your saved game page. I have 3 and yet I still haven't made it to see a winter yet. You can only make a handful of recipes and they are too simple and boring. Nothing like the complex recipes that came with Back to Nature. You don't get to decide where your crops and grass grow either. It's already decided for you where your pasture will be, and your plots of soil are very uniformed and evenly set. I think this game will appeal more to younger children, but for the older fans of Harvest Moon, it just doesn't stack up.

absolutely love this game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: May 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

My girlfriend and I had been looking for a game that we can play together. I love video games, and she likes them, but she doesn't like to play a lot of the games that I do. After some thinking, I proposed the idea of Harvest Moon: a fun little game about farming. Surprisingly enough, she agreed to give it a try. This was a great purchase; we both absolutely love the game and really enjoy playing it together.

The premise of the game is that your grandfather recently passed away and left you his farm. You take over the farm, but the village is in trouble. If you can't find a way to save the village in one year, the village will be destroyed. There are nine possible endings, each one saving the village. While farming is important, it is the interactions and relationships with the other characters that are stressed.

It is up to you to do the day to day tasks of watering your crops, feeding the animals, brushing them, milking them, gathering eggs, and interacting with your neighbors. If at the end of the year you have failed to accomplish an ending (I was so close!), you have to start the game over, but you get to keep all of your possessions, animals, and money. You do have to start all over as far as the relationships go, but this is the same as if you got an ending. With 9 endings in all, you can keep playing and focusing on different people and different things.

This is a true family game and is a lot of fun to play. I'm really glad that I found a game I can play with my girlfriend and we both can enjoy it. I'm surprised that a farming game is this much fun!

Who Knew farming could BE so Addictive?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is the first Harvest Moon game I've played (I plan to try the PS version next.), so I can't compare it to the other HM's. It was really a challenge to get the nine endings, it just took time. I love training my dog and looking after the animals, but watering the crops everyday, especially if you have a lot of them, can be really annoying. I heard about marrying someone in the other ones, and was disappointed that you couldn't do it here too.
P.S. You don't need dog food, you can put any kind of food in the dog bowl (egg, very berry, etc.)

Just one year

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played other Harvest Moon games and I like them all, and I like this one too. The only problem is that you only get one year. In the other games, you can form lasting relationships, get married, even have kids, get divorced, remarry, etc. year after year. This one starts you from scratch after a year (you lose) or you manage to save the homeland (you win). You get to keep your stuff, but all the relationships start over. It's cool that there are different endings, but I lost interest after the second one- and that's only because I was putting up a brave face since the kids got it for me for Christmas and I didn't want them to feel bad! I was pretty disgusted the minute I realized I'd lost all the ground I'd gained just cause I beat the game.

This was particularly disappointing because I thought surely the PS2 version would have all kinds of extra side quests and fun stuff to do after the first year.

I'm not a critic

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

To tell you the truth, I love MOST Harvest Moon games. This game was fun at first, but when I found out you can't get married (you get kissed on the cheek by your girlfriend after the credits), and you only play a year, and then just keep all of your animals, money, etc, but not your friendship with people in town. I was really nice with those stars. If this is your first Harvest Moon game, I'd say you'd better be ready for only a few things, like the following:
you should be able to read, patience, and having to do the same thing about 60 times.

Pros:
you get to catch your dog now
put weeds in your dog's dish instead of food
you don't have to fertillize your field
no need to spend millions on making a bigger house, because it is always tiny
you can get a small job
choose what your horse looks like (only talk to the one horse you want)
no wasting stuff for peoples b-days
you can make a wish that turns out good, or the oposite of what you wanted
you get to keep your cows and chickens after the first time you play this game
a few that you could think are good or bad

Cons:
you have to make friends all over again each time you try a different ending
you can't get married
no festivals
too short of a game (even for someone who only plays 30 min.)
house is small
nobody knows when their birthdays are
you can only give 1 present per person
etc...

If you do get this game, take your time and have fun!

Why Natsume, why?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: April 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Not only is this the most pointless Harvest Moon I've played, Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland is the most pointless GAME I have ever played.

In order to change direction and create something different from the original formula, Natsume opted to minimize the focus on farming and emphasize your relationships in town. While interesting in theory, the way in which the approach is executed yields only utter failure. This is because it renders farming COMPLETELY obsolete! Why? Because you don't need to farm to win the game. That's right -- farming has absolutely NOTHING to do with winning the game. Planting and harvesting your crops? Pointless. Raising chickens, cows, a horse, a dog? -- all pointless. MONEY? Pointless! You just don't need it. You need not lay one finger on your farm, you can simply talk to people and give them gifts easily found within the environment -- this opens up a few lackluster events, and presto, you win the game. No farming necessary. I woke up on the 7th of Summer and all of the sudden, the game was over. The 7th of Summer! On the first and only year! I hadn't even seen Fall or Winter yet. I wonder why on earth this is called 'Harvest Moon', because it is certainly NOT a farm sim. Farming is optional, but why would you want to do it if it doesn't lead anywhere, and matters not in the end?

Additionally, if that weren't enough, the characters are just too flat for the relationship emphasis to work. They just simply aren't interesting. They do not have the flare, the charm, the personality of those seen in BTN, or even the original. They are absolutely dull.

To top it all off, Natsume omitted some of the most charming elements of the series. There is no marriage, no children, and perhaps worst of all, NO festivals. There really isn't anything to look forward to, and the boring characters certainly don't provide any incentive. There really isn't anything worth working for. Need I say more?

Gameplay wise, what irked me the most was that 1 second = 1 minute. Not only does this make days absurdly short, but a contradiction arises. The game strongly suggests that you work on your fields during the day, and this is implemented by your energy depleting at a must faster rate in the night hours. Also, in certain weather conditions, if you don't attend to your crops, they will whither and die. You can have your itsy bitsy field at nearly full, and by the time you are done watering, the sun has already set. Well, what does that mean? That a lot of people you may want to speak to are unavailable! If not at the second you finish, certainly when you get anywhere. Though this may make it a bit interesting in terms of time management, it gets a bit irritating if you get colds constantly (which you contract if you work too much at night). Although, then again, as stated above...why bother farming?

The only remotely positive points this game has to offer is decent (though at times tiresome) interface, superb graphics and, best of all, the transportation of your cows and horse in and out of the barn is a breeze -- no where near the frustrating hassle that it was in BTN. ...That's it.

I have noticed that a majority of the good reviews are written by those who are new to Harvest Moon, while a majority of the negative are written by veterans of the series. This is no surprise. If you are new, and would like to start out on the series, I do not recommend this title: this was a failed experiment, go to Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, Harvest Moon 64, or the original Harvest Moon instead. If you are a veteran, stay away -- or, if you're really that curious, just rent it. Though, don't be surprised if you feel you've wasted your time, money, and gasoline in getting there.

Overall? It should be obvious. This is not a purchase worthy game. I wasted twenty dollars and five hours (yes, only five hours and it was over!) of my life on this garbage. However, there is hope for the series; Harvest Moon: A Beautiful Life looks incredibly promising. So, Harvest Moon veterans, don't despair just yet.

Moooving in the right direction

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: January 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Certainly all of the Harvest Moon games are wonderfully fun. Save The Homeland keeps the games going in the right direction. A multitude of new characters, all of whom have their own likes and dislikes. Plenty of ways to go about the winning of the game, many new challenges, cute music that never gets irritating, and adorable graphics.
However...
There are quite a few problems, the first of which is rather minor. If you've ever played Harvest Moon 64, you probably already know what I'm talking about. Ah yes, the wonders of spell and grammer check. It's not a big issue, but really,how Katie could "like to seeing me" is beyond me. A gamer would probably simply read over the mistake, but it does become irritating, as all that would need to be done would be to proof read the text.
Next problem, the entire game is set around finding a way to win. Of course, at first glance, that sentence makes very little sense. However, it becomes irritating that you can simply make friends with one or two of the townspeople, hardly bother to grow crops or take care of animals, and win in about two hours of game play, then start over again to get the next of nine endings. This game, to say it shortly, is rather easy.
The controls of this game are rather irritating, but the player will get used to them after a while.
Despite what it may seem, this is a wonderful game, but like any game, it has problems. Check it out!

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