Harvest Moon: Magical Melody Review

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.

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.