Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley Review

Harvest Moon is an addictive series, there's no doubt about it. The first Harvest Moon came out for SNES in 1996 and its been drawing people in ever since. The premise of Harvest Moon is simple: Manage time, make money, become friends with the villagers, harvest crops and make home improvements. It's compelling stuff and every Harvest Moon game has hundreds of hours of content to keep you hooked.

Leaf Valley is a very pretty place to stand around

Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley is the latest installment in the Harvest Moon franchise and a remake of Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland. Hero of Leaf Valley is a lot different compared to the rest of the main series due to its main character being proportionately more mature than the rest of the short, chibified characters of previous Harvest Moon games.

 That actually isn't my dog... yet

The game starts off with your character making his way to Leaf Valley after receiving a letter from his deceased grandfather, you have a look around the farm and enter his house to collect his possessions to return home. Before you can depart, three Harvest Sprites -- whom you would remember if you had played previous titles -- approach you and request you stay and help them out. Right one cue, a fancy looking woman accompanied by two suited men tell you to clear your stuff out.

Your home is pretty cozy. You can even watch TV to see News, weather, etc

As it turns out, they are from a group, "FunLand" and they want to level the town and put a FunLand amusement park where it stood. They tell you that if you want to fight to save the town, you have to come up with $50,000 in two years. Thankfully, you don't have to raise the $50,000 in 2 years to save your town, there are 16 other methods to do it. You can make friends with the locals by giving them gifts, follow the storyline by prompting it with interactions and event visits, and you can save the town in the way you want.

 This guy keeps calling me bro. I actually have no idea who he is

The process of the game is very similar to the rest of the series: Hoe your field, sprinkle seeds, water crops, wait several days, harvest and repeat. If you're a fan of the series and you want something drastically different I'd probably look elsewhere, but the formula still remains tight. Strangely enough, your field actually remains clean throughout. In previous entries your field accumulated weeds, stones and wood which you had to clean up, but your field is always a clean slate. Besides farming, other ways to make cash include fishing, gathering materials, mining, doing part-time jobs and raising farm animals. It sounds tedious and really... it is. But it is actually quite fun, you'll become lost in the urge to progress how things move, raise animals and name them, and even eventually marry a girl from the valley once you have wooed her enough with gifts. You can even play an Ocarina to tame animals, put food out to rope in your own dog, and you can even raise a horse which you eventually get to ride.

 Watering crops is part of the routine

The layout for the HUD and menu system for Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley is great: It's simple and easy to get your head around. On top of that, the mini-map at the bottom-left is a welcome addition as it actually shows a blip of villagers on it. The map you can bring up on the select-screen is very detailed, Leaf Valley is enjoyable and easy to traverse. However, the camera is probably the most frustrating part to Hero of Leaf Valley and you'll be fighting with it the most. Due to having no second analogue stick, and the L and R buttons being reserved for tools, animal calling and items, you're forced to either center the camera with the triangle button or rotate it with the D-Pad, meaning you have to hook your index finger around to reach it. It doesn't help that the camera rotates so slowly too. On the positive side, it really is fantastic to have a Harvest Moon game without a set camera.

It's hard to believe this girl is the CEO of the corporation trying to destroy your town

Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley is really beautiful, the graphics look great on the PSP and the character models and art really shines. However, you do notice the odd seams on buildings and walls -- you can see where things have been put together, it's a bit off-putting. Music-wise, the game sounds pretty good. It's nothing special, but I never got sick of listening to it while running around town doing chores. The loading screens can be a massive pain, though. Just like Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility, Hero of Leaf Valley suffers loading screens every single time you move from area to area. If it were a quick transition it would have been fine, but instead you get a "now loading" and you have to wait 2-3 seconds. Harvest Moon as a series is all about patience but really it's pretty unnecessary to see so much loading in a game like this.

 Mining is a bit of a dull mini-game, but at least part-time jobs are interactive

All-in-all, Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley is a fantastic gem of a PSP game. While it doesn't deviate a large amount from the rest of the series besides a few minor improvements, the winning formula is still there. It's ridiculously addictive, cutesy, fun, time-consuming and you'll have a hard time stopping once you get it started. Got time to kill? Go grab yourself a copy now and you won't be displeased.