Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (Nintendo GameCube, 2004)

This game is cute.

You can learn all about Farm life and how much hard work it can be.

You start off inheriting your fathers farm and must make it successful which includes getting married to one of the single gals in the town, but you must win her affection by the end of the first year. You also need to make your farm produce money, which enables you to choose whether you want to farm the land or farm animals for money.

You need to support yourself and your family as you will soon have a child after your marry. To do this you must learn to cook with the food available throught the land or thru your farming means.

Each season changes and you go thru the years. Many surprises along the way and you will never know what path you will take when you befind one charater or make another upset.

The only downfall is that you can not control your wife or child.

This game has a bit of a Sims touch to it, but more simplified.

My 3 year old loves to tinker around with it as he likes the animals and riding the horse and picking up the chickens. I like it as it gives me relief from a hectic day!

This game is exellent! In the beggining, it's a little hard because you don't know exactly what you're supposed to do, but when you get the hang of it, it's a great game! You can plant crops, raise animals, go fishing, dig in the archeology site, and much more. And when you get married, the game is even better! You then have to care for a son. You have to decide if he inherits the farm, or if he can choose to do this.

If you want my advice in the game, here it is:

* When Van, the salesman, comes into town, try to buy the fishing pole and the brush from him. They may seem expensive but you'll soon turn a profit with the fishing pole. And with the brush, you can wash the animals, and of course, brush them. This will keep them happy. Van comes on the third and eigth day of each season.

* Try to get to the archeology site early, because it takes a while to dig up everything. Carter, the man who runs the place, has to be in the dig site for you to be able to dig. He is open from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

* You have to buy all of your seeds from anyone at Vesta's farm, which is just over the bridge. Try to plant your seeds early in the season so you will be able to harvest all the crops.
There are many types of seeds, and below, I listed the seasons of the seeds that I know of:

Tomato: Spring to Fall
Watermelon: Spring to Summer
Strawberry: Fall to Spring
Melon: Summer to Fall
Turnip: Summer to Winter
Potato: Winter to Spring
Carrot: Fall to Winter
Sweet Potato: Fall only

* Any fish that you catch, or items you find at the archeology site, make sure to sell them to Van, or sell them yourself. (You can put up a stand next to the inn). But also keep some of the fish to eat later on.

* One of the best fishing spots is near the waterfall next to the archeology site. You can catch some valuable fish there.

* Always check the animals' feed boxes in the barn. You have to cut the grass outside to make fodder, the animals' food, and then you get the fodder from inside the barn. When the weather is nice, bring the animals outside. You don't have to feed them when they are out.

* Every time you visit the girl you plan to marry, try to bring her a flower. You can easily find flowers next to the spring, or close to the turtle swamp.

That's all the advice I can think of right now. I hope that my review has helped you in your decision to buy this game. It's a wonderful game and I recomend it to anyone who is thinking of getting it. Good luck!

This is a very addicting game. You start as a young boy on a Farm and doing daily work, taking care of animals, watering plants, trees, seeds, picking up chicken eggs and you can ride around town on a horse. You can go digging underground for artifacts and sell them at the market stand. You can get married and have a child to teach about the Farm. Go fishing and sell you can even cook your own recipes pretty awsome game. If you hook up game boy advance you can go into another town and meet other people also. The game spans over thirty years and you grow old, my son in the game is a teenager so I can't tell you no more. The game does change seasons like real time. There is a WARNING for suggestive themes. WARNING WARNING!!! I have not seen any myself as of yet so I can't say anything about that WARNING!!!!!

I really love this game, it is very addictive so be prepared to spend a lot of time in front of your TV. It is a lot of fun and you actually get see how life would be on a farm - you work hard to earn your money. Like real life the harder you work, the more money you earn. If you are wanting to earn a lot of money the easiest way is buy tree seeds early and then after a year each tree will produce a lot of fruit and if you get the seed maker each fruit is worth as much the original seed you bought, but be careful that you don't plant too many. I kind of overdid after I bought my seed maker and ended up with a lot of trees - each tree gives you 24 fruits and your bag only holds 99, you can put another 99 in your frigerator. You can bargain with Van, the traveling sales man that you can sell things to or buy them from him to try and earn more money - sometimes it takes a couple tries before he will offer more money but it usually worth the try, can be worth 20% more, the little stuff he won't make a higher bid on, but it is something you will have to do until you learn what he will make a higher bid on. Also, when it comes time to buy a cow, it will take a year for her to be ready to breed so she will give you milk, the more expensive the cow, the higher price you get for her milk, so you might want to wait just a little until you have the extra money for a higher price cow, it will be worth it. Hope you have fun. I know I have been.

~Graphics 4/5~
The graphics in this game are pretty good, not much to say about them, though, over all I give them a 4 out of 5, because they're good, but they're not perfect, like in any other game, it has it's defects, just like any other game....

~GamePlay 5/5~
The Gameplay in this game is great!, the days are longer than previous games, thus making it possible to get more done in a day, adn in this game it's a lot easier to get married, you just keep giving stuff to your girl, and Voila! your marrie, the only downfall, is that they don't show a wedding, they just she your guy goin around talkin to people, and then BOOM! your a year later, and you already have a kid, so, yeah...other than that this game is awesome, so enjoy!

~Music 2/5~
Yikes! the music in this game is crap! you think Natsume could've done better than that! I'd suggest if you do buy this game, turn the Volume down on the TV, and Blast your Latest Relient K. CD ;-), or whatever music you like!

I hope my review helped you, in your choice to buy this game, cuz Natsume Deserves your purchase ;-), other than a few minor things, this game is AWESOME!
and my Rating all together is a 5/5!