Harvest Moon: Magical Melody Review

By Mathew Kumar Published 21 April, 2006

The moon on a stick.

Version tested: GameCube

Who'd want to be a farmer? Foot and Mouth, Mad Cow, Bird Flu - these are only some of the epidemics that threaten them. Crop farmers aren't exempt from suffering either, as supermarkets demand the best quality produce at the lowest cost, while consumers bitch about pesticides and genetically engineered food.

Plus, farmers are always incredibly hungry.

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody teaches us that farmers are the hungriest people on Earth. Play it for a bit and you'd surmise that the average farmer chose the career simply to get direct access to a food source. The simple act of watering the crops in the morning can tire out a farmer to the point where he has to devour all the freshly laid eggs in the chicken coop. In fact, a brand new farmer will spend most of his time foraging for leaves and berries just to put a dent in his appetite.

Then again, it's probably best not to put too much stock in the lessons of Magical Melody, because if you do then you'll probably decide that farmers are meant, even encouraged, to go out into the forest and hug all the animals - be they raccoons, squirrels or even monkeys. Meanwhile, moles should definitely be hit with a mallet. It's just the done thing.

Harvest Moon's always been about crafting an incredibly cute farming experience, ya see, rather than simulating the grim reality of intensive farming; you may be able to own sheep, chickens and cows, but there are no abattoirs here. Magical Melody goes further than most. Indeed, this might actually be the cutest iteration of Harvest Moon yet, with an adorable cast of bobble-headed villagers and cuddly critters. It may also be the hardest Harvest Moon yet.

'Harvest Moon: Magical Melody' Screenshot 1

Despite this question, your cute little avatar will never have to plunge his arm shoulder deep into any of his cows.

At the outset of A Wonderful Life, its GameCube predecessor, you inherited a well-kept farm with a chicken coop and a barn. In Harvest Moon: Magical Melody your character, male or female, is given the choice of three areas of land in Flower Bud Village, then dumped unceremoniously on the plot with nothing but a house and some tools. The land is covered in a web of weeds, trees and stumps that have to be cleared before any farming can happen, and this can take days. In fact, in Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, nothing is quick or easy.

But that's not to say this can't be incredibly rewarding. Initially it can feel frustratingly unfair as you struggle to clear the land and care for your first few rows of crops, all the while foraging for food or passing out from exhaustion. Regularly. There's also a painful lack of explanation - each new object or technique requires trial and error, as the manual merely describes what you can do, not how you do it.

However, as the rhythm becomes familiar (for example, finally learning how to use a bonfire to grill low quality fish to stock up on food), and you can afford helpful items like a larger rucksack, it quickly turns the corner and becomes almost dangerously addictive, as you juggle the daily efforts of maintaining a field of crops and saving for farm improvements. Each day brings you closer to that purchase of a chicken coop or a brand new cow. Eggs and milk can even be refined into mayonnaise, butter or cheese with the purchase of farm machinery. You want these things.

'Harvest Moon: Magical Melody' Screenshot 2

I won the prize at the Cow Festival! Take that, you transsexual weirdo!

The game's minimal plot surrounds the Harvest Goddess, who, depressed as no one believes in her, has turned to stone, and the main character must perform at least fifty tasks to gain the lost notes that will form the magical melody that revives her. These tasks range from something as simple as staying up all night to winning a competition held at one of the many festivals during the year, and add a nice feeling of accomplishment to occasionally quite obscure tasks.

Competition comes from Jamie, a farmer already established in the region, and it's supposed to add an extra edge. That said, it doesn't really change your daily business compared to previous titles, but then that's not the only competitive element of the Jamie equation - you're also competing for her affections. Assuming it's a girl - Jamie's always the opposite sex, although, actually, the character model's the same whether she's a he or he's a she. Which is a bit weird.

As with previous Harvest Moon's, it's possible to marry someone like Jamie. But then why marry a freaky poncho-clad asexual farmer when there are an amazing twenty (ten for each sex) other possible sweethearts to offer your blue feather to? (Not a euphemism, incidentally.) Sadly, due to the size of cast, they lack personality, so relationships are largely forged on constant gift-giving [sounds realistic - Ed]. As a consequence, Harvest Moon: Magical Melody has a real loneliness to it, unlike A Wonderful Life, which regularly featured amusing or touching vignettes about the local townspeople. While we're on the subject of slight disappointments, Magical Melody also suffers occasional frame rate issues when you're near Jamie's busy farm or other clumps of activity, but this is rare enough that it doesn't particularly detract from the experience.

Despite these faults, I've been utterly hypnotised by Harvest Moon: Magical Melody from the moment I laid my hands on it, even watching my girlfriend play it for hours on end (her time spent playing probably a tenfold increase on mine) and I still don't feel that we've even begun to scratch the surface. The game seems to value extreme breadth over depth with dull townspeople and simplistic fishing and mining, but, for example, I haven't even found space to discuss the joys of horse-riding, shearing sheep and dying wool, or even the (throwaway) multiplayer mini-games. I suppose you might want to avoid eating the dead chickens, but if there's a hunger inherent to Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, it's the hunger to keep playing it until you've seen it all, and it'll be a long time until it's sated.

8 / 10

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About Mathew Kumar

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Comments (27) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • megastar #1 6 years ago

    "are you going to enter your cow"

    that made me laugh

  • Murbal #2 6 years ago

    Ban this sick filth!

  • mad_caddy #3 6 years ago

    noooo, not again i lost a whole summer to the last harvest moon, and then i couldnt get the better half off it for the whole winter.

    I didnt tell her not to buy a goat though did I....that'll teach her.

  • Hunam85 #4 6 years ago

    Its a good game. Matt failed to mention the new take on fishing which is alot closer to Animal Crossing than previous incarnations, so you can catch fish alot more and with less trouble, and there are some spots which if put some time into can net you several thousand a day in cold hard cash.

    Also not mentioned is the way the village evolves around the characters shipping habits. You start of with a Junk shop in the town which has lofty prices for tool upgrades, but if you head to the mine and ship plenty of ore a blacksmith moves into town which offers cheaper upgrades but asks for ore for the job, and will take a few days, but can save you alot of money. Also, if you stop shipping ore for a prolonged time the blacksmith with move out citing lack of resources in Flowerbud to do the job. There are quite a few residents that will do this so the game encourages you to ship a variety of crops and resources over just grinding the money givers.

    Also not mentioned (there's a theme here) is the fact that you can buy more land as you progress, and sometimes it directly relates to how well you get on with the mayor, while you have a few plots available to buy all the time, befriending him will lead to more plots for you to run your empire on, which is a vast improvement as you have more scope to develop your bussiness than just a single farm.

    The game is better than AWL no doubt, its more of a big brother to Mineral Town as it runs on the same conventions as that (only feeding animals once a day, not stupid talking plants etc.) and is more enjoable because of it.

    How about i mive that artice an edit for you there? :p

  • fatsuit #5 6 years ago

    Sounds excellent.

    This and Chibi Robo next, then.

  • Dirtie #6 6 years ago

    Excellent game. I hated A Wonderful Life, but this game is great. If you can get over the cutesy style, you're all set for a classic Harvest Moon game with a whole lot of stuff added in.

    It does a have a bug or two though, and the usual (bad) Natsume translation in places :p

    And damn does Jamie scare me. He/she is both a male and female - it depends what gender you play with. The intentionally designed him/her like that so it could be either way :S

  • Teeth #7 6 years ago

    Does success within the game rest on befriending those insufferable Sprites that are in the GBA game?

  • bionutz #8 6 years ago

    /rough male-ish voice: so... is this a game for girls?

  • jlaakso #9 6 years ago

    Hmmm. Sounds a lot better than A Wonderful Life, which I found awfully repetitive. That and the absolutely static world really put me off, especially when compared to the charms of Animal Crossing.

  • Aretak #10 6 years ago

    I loathed AWL with a passion, and since it was my first Harvest Moon game I think it's put me off trying any of the others. This does sound quite good though...

  • Hunam85 #11 6 years ago

    Teeth, the sprites are the one who give the mission to find 100 notes (dunno why it says 50 in the review?) and they only talk to you when you turn up every 5 notes to turn it into a Musical Instrument (you can't play them sadly)
    Edited by 1 at 22/04/06 @ 13:29

  • ManicDrunkMonk #12 6 years ago

    BOOORING!!!!!

  • Teeth #13 6 years ago

    Cheers Hunam85 - so how does the player get a lot of harvesting done then? The review mentions farm machinery, and I never played the GC game.

  • Hunam85 #14 6 years ago

    Same way you allways have done, pick it up and shove it in the shipper. Thing is the area you get to farm on most of the time is small, with a coop on mine i have at most 4-5 3x3 squares for crops and 4 3x3 for grass. The game is more animal centric and wants you to ship a variety over just massive hauls, so the need for tools to help you dig out hundreds of crops isnt that high, as you dont really need to do it.

    The machinery is a Mayo maker in your cook and cheese maker (i think?) in the barn, which can help with highering the price you get for shipping something (which now pops up when you put something in the shipper so you know how much its worth) there is loads of cooking to do, the house works like AC too where you can rearrange and buy nice things for it, i bought an arm chair :)
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/06 @ 15:14

  • Galvanizer #15 6 years ago

    I love the Character Design.

    Reminds me of Wind Waker. :)

  • Teeth #16 6 years ago

    Sounds good Hunam, cheers.

  • Hunam85 #17 6 years ago

    Lol, still think i should have wrote the review :p

  • darkbhudda #18 6 years ago

    "Also not mentioned (there's a theme here)"

    Hunam85 there is a difference between a review and a reference guide.
    There are a few other things the review didn't mention, like you have to put the disc in the machine, and turn it on, you have to pick up the controller and press buttons and you have to pay your power bill, or they cut off your electricity

    From the review it sounded like there are lots of things to do, maybe the reviewer isn't your clone after all. Also don't forget editors like to change things as well.

    I don't mind people criticising badly written reviews, or bad choice in reviewer - a vegan reviewing Kill all the Wildlife and Eat Their Hearts Too, for example - but to make off hand remarks that stuff is missing from the review, when at least one of your examples is actually in the review, could be seen as rude.

    Can you write your own review and have it posted on this site? Please do, so I can write in how you didn't mention that the berry leaves were teal coloured. I'm sure someone will not buy the game just because they hate how all games have mint coloured berry leaves.

  • lucky_jim #19 6 years ago

    "Kill all the Wildlife and Eat Their Hearts Too"? Now that sound like my kinda game, when's it out?!

    Seriously, I'm a bit concerned that all the people who adore this seem scathing on AWL... the thing is, having not played any of the previous iterations, I actually enjoyed AWL (silly talking plants and all). This sounds much more like hard work.

    I'll probably still pick it up if it gets a UK release, though.

  • Hunam85 #20 6 years ago

    darkbhudda, I made my comments as i felt that as a review it was lacking in some necessary information that would help a buyer make an informed choice on the game in question, a game which i happen to know a whole lot about, and by the looks of it my comments helped at least one person make a choice about wether or not to look into it.

    Many of the comments here are based on past exprience with the past iteration of HM on the GC, one which was vastly different to all the others in the series so i felt that some points which were poor in AWL and improved on here should be mentioned, such as the fishing aspect of the game. Fishing is now a massive part of the game and a huge help to any would be virtual farmer as i can take alot of stress of the farming and on to the social side of it, yet you liken such a comment to pointing out you need to put the disk in or what colour a leaf is? Maybe the basing you knowledge of HM off the review alone drew that comment, as what i mentioned is an important point to anyone who has played HM on the GC. The reviewer himself even commented that he only just scratched the surface.

    The review was actully an enjoyable read, but far too short for an overhaul of the series, maybe EG doesnt place HM highly on its rader, but id say more people would read a review on HM to figure if they want to buy the game than say, on Oblivion. Before this review was posted the reviewer should have spent more time on this game or maybe more time with the series as a whole to understand the grand scheme of the HM legacy.

    And to again be rude, which example is in the review? I read the copy throughly before even commenting so i wouldnt fall into the trap you claim i have? Sure he says you can fish, but thats not the same as what i said.

  • Duckers #21 6 years ago

    I bought AWL, and I was pleased. For the first few weeks, anyway.
    Until I bought a goat. Spent all my money on that damned thing, and let it die.

    Oh dear...

  • Teeth #22 6 years ago

    I think the review was a bit short/lacking too, much like many of the recent EG reviews. Bit of a shame; not the end of the world.

  • |Laguna| #23 6 years ago

    "I made my comments as i felt that as a review it was lacking in some necessary information that would help a buyer make an informed choice on the game in question, a game which i happen to know a whole lot about, and by the looks of it my comments helped at least one person make a choice about wether or not to look into it. "

    Indeed you have, I greatly thank you for your comments as you have helped inform me in greater detail about the game and have aided me in coming to a decision about this game, I will most probably buy it. Cheers.

    Also, what was really that bad about AWL, I have not played it myself but I recall at the time it getting many shining reviews. how key are the differences between that and this?

  • aerisdead #24 6 years ago

    "Before this review was posted the reviewer should have spent more time on this game or maybe more time with the series as a whole to understand the grand scheme of the HM legacy."

    As the reviewer in question, I'd like to state that I've spent far more time on this game than I probably should have, and spent even longer watching it be played (admittedly not something you base a review on, but it's a nice refresher) as I said in the review. As for my understanding of the series as a whole, I really don't think I need much more, having been right there for the beginning with the original Harvest Moon on SNES, and each iteration up until now. Personally I consider it the peak of the series so far, other than a few flaws, outlined in the review.

    That's all I really have to say on the matter.

  • RedSinisterAngel #25 6 years ago

    You know if you fricken people hate the game then dont fricken post anyting. Also nobody wants to hear how much you loath the game you people are alway trying to start fights...*sighs*

    P.S. By the way I liked the article! it was funny and made me want to play it. I got the game after reading this article and the game is wicked fun! I loved it. Thank you for making the article.

  • jaxon58 #26 5 years ago

    Anyone know when this is out in Europe yet? Various websites are posting different dates, then changing them.

  • SHC #27 8 months ago

    The game has many funny stuff on it and it's been a fun game to play but this type of graphics for me has been a little bit disappointing. In every game there are some stuff that you want to do and this game has that and the game play from the start is alright but in the end its getting a bit boring. Senior Healthcare Consultants