Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition

Genre: Top-Down Management Sim / RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition is a Management Sim with RPG elements along the same lines as other “farming RPG” games like Stardew Valley. The Harvest Moon franchise was actually the game that kick-started this genre, though that lineage is a bit murkier than it may seem – Harvest Moon was actually originally the Westernized title for the Story of Seasons franchise, but in the time since a split between the developer of those games and the publisher caused the Story of Season franchise and the Harvest Moon name to go their separate ways, with the Harvest Moon games now being made by a different developer entirely. This entry in that series was originally released on PC in 2017, with a port to multiple other platforms, including Nintendo Switch, in 2018.

In terms of presentation, this game is rough. Graphically, many elements of this game look like a cheap knockoff mobile game, with extremely generic-looking cartoony 2D backgrounds and objects, and some extremely simplistic 3D character models. At the very least, the soundtrack is decent, albeit forgettable.

When it comes to the gameplay, that “cheap knockoff mobile game” feeling returns. It’s not that there’s anything terribly wrong with this game (well, there’s a little wrong, but more on that in a moment), it’s just that this game does absolutely nothing that this genre hasn’t been doing for decades now, and it lacks the charm of many of its contemporaries, with a somewhat poor localization and paper-thin story.

Even beyond how generic much of this feels, there are additional problems here. Targeting a square of ground to work on is finicky, and moving your character a little too far in a direction can cause them to target the wrong section of land. Also, this game simplifies things by having the A button do pretty much everything, no longer requiring players to switch between objects like a hoe or watering can, and while this may seem like it streamlines the process, it also makes things far more monotonous, as your input has largely been reduced to “tap A a lot”.

Another flaw here is that shopkeepers’ hours aren’t made clear to the player, and at times seem inconsistent – I swear the general store guy let me buy from him at 9AM on some days, but not until 11AM on other days… and the lack of any “wait” option meant that if I was already out of energy and didn’t have any food, I was stuck either skipping a day in-game or literally waiting out the clock. Ugh.

However, I would argue that this game’s worst flaw is this – This game is being sold for $40, and there is nothing in this package to justify that price. Not the graphics, not the gameplay… this game feels all the world like a budget-priced knockoff game, and it’s priced like a major new release. The publisher apparently seems to think the Harvest Moon name alone will sell people on dropping $40 on this game, when Stardew Valley, a much better game in all respects, sits at roughly one third the price.

Those who read my reviews may have noticed that I often aim to review similar games at the same time, make kinda’ a theme of it, and I’m reviewing this game at the same time as Doraemon Story of Seasons. Comparatively, I actually enjoy playing Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition a bit better, because I find the gameplay less tedious in this game than in Doraemon. However, I think that this is overall the worse game, because while Doraemon has some qualities that may make it worthwhile for some, I see very little here that anyone should bother with when Stardew Valley is also available for play on the Nintendo Switch. Doraemon at least has a nice (if inconsistent) presentation as a selling point, along with a franchise license that some may find to be a draw. But I can think of no reason that anyone would buy Harvest Moon: Light of Hope instead of Stardew Valley, especially not for the absurd price it’s being sold for. Do yourself a favor and skip this game.

tl;dr – Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition is the latest game in the long-running “Farming RPG” series, but it plays like a cheap knockoff of itself, doing nothing to push the genre forward, offering nothing unique or noteworthy to set it apart, and demanding a full $40 for what amounts to a game that should have been a budget-priced release. There is no reason to buy this game when Stardew Valley is better in virtually every way and roughly a third the price.

Grade: D+

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