Farming Fun for Girls on the Go
Harvest Moon returns to GBA, and there's a PSP version in the offing too.
While gamers with a penchant for death and destruction are amply catered for, those with a more sanguine approach to games have substantially less on their platter. Thankfully, publisher Rising Star is back with agricultural hijinks in the form of the latest Game Boy Advance Harvest Moon game.
Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town is a rejigged version of the first Game Boy Advance episode that shifts gender emphasis. This time you play as a girl freshly arrived in a new town and eager to farm and cosy up to the hunky suitors that live alongside her.
All the trademark Harvest Moon gameplay is there, so you can expect lots of farm-style picking and planting, but there is ample opportunity for distraction too.
Meanwhile, Marvelous Interactive, the Japanese developer of the series, has announced that it is working on a version for the PSP that is based on earlier PlayStation instalments.
Early information, via IGN, seems to indicate a rather lazy approach to the conversion that plunges as far down as presenting the regularly proportioned gameplay in a bordered window on the widescreen handheld.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games