Although Animal Parade may look good, stick with the other Harvest Moon games.
If you ask me, Tree of Tranquility was pretty good, but nowhere near Magical Melody or A Wonderful Life. It was certainly still worth getting though. This game, on the other hand.. Well. I give it props for adding new things to do, new animals (for the circus), and a few other bachelor/ettes to marry (along with a host of other things, really)
However, one of the problems is that they took everyone from ToT, and shoved them into this town. Sure, I enjoyed those characters, though it's kind of awkward seeing them in a completely different place. Also, this is more of a personal opinion - but I think Harmonica Town is pretty ugly, not to mention there's some fairly frequent lag here.. But possibly the biggest problem is that it seems like your character doesn't fit the environment.. I can't exactly describe it, but the graphics are just slightly different, and it feels extremely weird moving around.
Anyway, those are my biggest gripes, and if perhaps they'd made Harmonica Town look better or stuck with the old village, I would've liked this more.
And if you like the HM series, if you haven't already played them, I highly recommend Magical Melody and A Wonderful Life.