Games aren't just about violence, there is the more peaceful side as well.
Where the vast majority of video games all boil down to the simple, and pretty tired, concept of kill everything and everyone, Harvest Moon takes a different path.
In Harvest Moon you don't kill anyone, you don't go on some killing spree with your axe, hammer, sickle and hoe, nor do you have any enemies other than time and the weather in the seasons.
Instead in Harvest Moon you do something that tends to sound scary to most gamers – You live in peace.
Harvest Moon DS Cute is another addition to the series of games where, for the most part in the series, you build a farm up from it's humble beginnings by working hard.
Most Harvest Moon games before this title tended to have you only playing as male, with the set goal of building the farm up and later to building a relationship and getting married to one of the women in the village you lived close to.
Over time the option to play as female in these games and marry one of the single men in the village began to appear, although a lot of the time that would be done for a single game and usually not released outside of Japan due to the outdated and frankly ignorant notion within the video game industry that females don't play games and males would be too ashamed of playing as female.
Here in the UK the Harvest Moon titles that allowed for playing as female never got released here in the UK, Magical Melody even had the option taken out of it – half of the game itself – due to the outdated and backwards notion that is still strong in the industry to this day that females don't play games, only males and that males would be too ashamed of playing as female.
A shame really because the female lead versions of the Harvest Moon games usually tend to work a lot better and be even more enjoyable than the male lead ones from all accounts.
That's where this game comes in. The first Harvest Moon game on the DS was Harvest Moon DS, you played as the male only in that one and it was regarded as having some pretty nasty glitches like save files being deleted suddenly or corrupted.
Not long after HMDS was released, DS Cute was announced and was released in Japan and the US. Sadly not here in the UK, usual reasons.
DS Cute was noted by those who played it to be a considerable improvement over HMDS since many of the glitches were fixed and the game was given a story, not a great story but it is better than nothing.
So details time:
In DS Cute you play as female only, the game begins with the Harvest Goddess being concerned that the lass has no work ethic and that the young woman will be punished by the Harvest King due to this.
The Harvest King however accuses the Harvest Goddess of always giving up and she reacts in anger, which results in the Harvest King losing his temper and turning the Harvest Goddess to stone and making her and the majority of the Harvest Sprites disappear.
This is where you come in.
You have to work hard, build the farm up and do all you can to bring back the Harvest Goddess and the Harvest Sprites.
At the same time you can socialise with the villagers and build friendships and a relationship with several of the single males who live in the village, or with a few of the males from Mineral Town if you have the Gameboy Advance titles of Friends Of Mineral Town or More Friends Of Mineral Town – sadly that one never got released here in the UK so I had to make use of Friends Of Mineral Town – by connecting the games via the Gameboy Advance Slot in the DS, if the DS has that slot, and the information will be transferred over, you only have to do it once and the data is stored without needing to connect the games again, unless you restart I believe.
Like in Harvest Moon games like A Wonderful Life and Back To Nature and the Gameboy Advance titles, each male will have their likes and dislikes if you give them gifts.
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The blunt of the game however is the farming. You have four seasons in the game with thirty days in each season, you can plant crops in three of those season – Spring, Summer, Fall.
As well as crops you can also care for animals should you have the bird shed and the animal shed, which are expensive and worth going for once you've saved up enough money from selling harvested crops.
Each crop has it's own growth span, some crops can continue to grow after harvest. Crops are tomatoes, Strawberries, Cucumbers and Eggplants are a few of the crops that continue to provide more crops to harvest while other crops like turnips and others need to be replanted after harvest.
There are also wild crops scattered around the area that you can harvest and sell for additional money.
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There are around 101 Harvest Sprites to be rescued, some can be rescued easily by clicking on a place like the box with an orange on it in the hotel in the village for example while others will require you to do a task a high number of times as you play.
Each Sprite is part of a team who once rescued can help you around the farm and around the game area, from helping with watering crops and caring for animals to collecting materials for building which are needed for additional farm buildings like the bird shed and animal shed.
Other Sprites play other parts such as the Harvest Sprite Channels such as the weather channel, very helpful for planning each day and knowing when to have your animals in if it's rain or very stormy weather. Another channel will alert you of special days where there's a festival in the village like a Chicken Festival and more.
These channels can be helpful and are best used to help you out.
You can also rescue Harvest Sprites who run a casino. In the casino you buy medals that are used as the currency in the casino, you have three mini games in the casino – Poker, Blackjack and Memory.
Getting a high amount of medals will allow you to buy helpful items that will help you out in the game, as well as special crops that you can't buy from Vesta's Farm and the Supermarket.
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There are shops you can buy crops and other items from, the Supermarket for example is where you can buy the two Rucksack upgrades that will increase your rucksack storage, a very helpful thing to have.
Van's Shop, which only opens on particular days, has special items that are very expensive, but a few of them are very helpful while stamina boosts and boosts to lower the amount of fatigue your character will suffer from as they work.
You ca also buy more buildings from Gotz Construction, as long as you have enough money as well as materials. Plus you can buy chickens, cows and sheep from two other shops.
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Your character has limited stamina and a fatigue level, the more you work, the more the stamina will reduce and the more fatigued your character will become, to the point of illness and collapse.
You start the game with a dog and cat, both of which you can name. A little later on you will receive a horse which you can also name. They all have a like system that will improve the more attention you give them, like taking the horse for a ride around and giving the dog and cat a cuddle each.
You can also increase how much they like you with the Touch Glove, which you buy, that will allow you to use the stylus to stroke the animal you interact with, another mini game of sorts. But be careful when using it, you might end up making the animal hate you instead if you stroke them the wrong way.
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Like most DS titles, you can connect with another DS user and explore their farm and the village in their copy of the game and I believe also Mineral Town, although I've not been able to do that so I'm not entirely sure.
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The game can be challenging at times when you are working with a limited stamina bar, you don't level up as such.
You can level up your tools to do a much better job, but your character does not level up and the only way to really improve your stamina is to buy some very expensive items that will take a long time to save up for.
You level your tools up by finding ore in the mine, however you can't fully access the mine until you trigger a cut scene early in the morning or at night, around 9:00 AM/9:00PM, where you can then fully access the ten levels of the mine and collect ore by smashing the rocks in there.
Also the seasons of Summer and Winter have some brutal storm days, in Summer for example a storm can destroy your crops and buildings, sometimes even leaving a large stone that your hammer may not be levelled up enough to smash into pieces.
So being ready for some painful storms and the hard work, and damage that results, is recommended.
The days in the game also go by very quickly, usually about ten minutes or so to a day so you have to work fast and move fast if you want to get anything done.
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Harvest Moon DS Cute isn't for everyone, playing as female may be a turn off for many as well as playing a game where the goal is to work hard, instead of running around shooting at anything and anyone who so much as looks at you the wrong way.
The game can be slow paced and requires a great deal of patience to get the most out of the game.
That patience is rewarded though in various ways.
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The game can be quite addictive to say the least, you'll find yourself spending hours tending to your farm that you'll lose all track of time. It soon becomes a game where 'Just five more minutes!' becomes the by word.
Those five more minutes soon become an hour, or more.
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So is the game worth getting?
Aye, it is. If you are looking for a game that is a change of pace from the usual run and gun titles that clog the market these days, then the Harvest Moon games are a wonderful peaceful choice to go for.
They can be quite calming and relaxing, while also very engrossing and addictive. DS Cute is such a fun little title that any small flaws you might find, and there aren't many, are easily forgiven.
It's a charming game that is capable of being endearing, the patience required for the game can be a lot but it is paid off quite well.
So if you are looking for a game that is a change of pace from killing and violence, Harvest DS Cute is worth a look. Just bear in mind that if you live in Europe then you may have to import it, thankfully though DS titles will work in any region for the most part and this game will work just fine on a European DS.
A wonderful little game and a highly refreshing title amid so many shooters, give it a try, you might be surprised.