This episode- No holds barred crafting style! (comparisson review)

In this episode, I will be puting 2 crafting games head to head for review and comparrison. So the venue for tonight is Fisher King vs. Harvest Moon- A Wonderful Life. For those of you that were thinking, hmm wasn't that a game a long time ago on Dreamcast? You would be correct in some regards. There was indeed, a version of Harvest Moon made back then. It's probably just as popular as this newer version for Playstation 2 (that came out recently).
Now, we have already established the Supernerdlady's fascination with "odd" niche games, so I don't have to go into that one again do I? But, for all of you senile slackers, you know have had your friendly little reminder.

Getting back to the actual review itself. My husband got Fisher King a few nights ago. It centers around cooking and fishing- at least that is the extent of what I was seeing. At first, it wasn't that bad.

Of course, you have to actually like some of those things to even want to play it more than five minutes. Crafting based games are very mellow, relaxed games. Hense, why I referred to as niche. It appeals to a very specific type of player in general. And, let's not kid ourselves here with delusions... some people just don't have the patience to sit there and do the same repetative things and enjoy them at the same time. Hey, all you MMO raiders know what I'm talking about there /wink.

Getting back to the original subject at hand... Fisher King was where I was right? Ok, so you start of the game with some pretty standard equipment- a bobber and a fishing pole. You can buy items in the shop to help you on your path to be a Fisher King (or queen actually). You can choose between 4 characters in the family- the parents or the 2 children (one of each of course).

The other main objective is cooking. To cook though, you need fish of course. At the stores, you can buy recipes (which you must have before you can even attempt to cook), fishing equipment upgrades, bait, or tools to help you get your own bait. This sounds pretty standard. Of course, it wasn't as simple. Usually on most games, you could expect to see some sort of command to tell you what ingredients are necessary in order to make the recipes. This didn't. So, it left it all up to you to figure out. Then, after that, it didn't show any animation or anything- it just said fail or not fail.

You can sell your fish to make money. So, at least where I was playing, money wasn't hard to come by. It was just a matter of time. Then comes the fishing part. You have to chose the bait and the equipment before you can cast. Watch the bobber and then you will reel in your fish. The game has vibration- so you would think that it would be different depending on the fish, the amount of surges you would feel. This, however, was not the case. So, it kind of sucked. Ok, I won't lie now... it really sucked. Last but not least, movement. It, like everything is just slow.
So basically here's a rundown of what you do- fish, sell, look for bait, fish, fish, fish, cook, fish, sell. And all the running back and forth of course. While it is relaxing- and makes it a very easy game to play on the phone- since it takes little to no concentration really, it only goes so far.
--------------------------------
So, Harvest Moon actually came out a little while ago. My dh and I had planned on getting it sooner, but ran across a minor bump. I'll spare you the details on that, you can figure it out. So off today we went to spend some Gamestop gift certificates. We picked it up, and man am I having a blast with it. It's like night and day with this one.

There are actually a lot of things to do... so much, I have trouble finishing what I need to before the game day ends (which, it never did in Fisher King by the way). In Harvest Moon, you need to maintain a farm. You have to buy plants, cultivate the land, water plants, till the soil, use fertilizer... and that's just the harvest part of it.

You can also have farm animals. You start off with a cow, and a dog- both of which, like your character and the farm itself, you can name. My son got a kick out of naming the farm animals. I let him pick which dog he wanted, and name it. My cow is named Bessie- chuck it up all you want. The dog is named Abe (again, my 3 year old's idea). My farm is a mixure of letters from my children's names. Ironically, it looks just as Asian as the name I chose for my character.


But naming them isn't the only thing of course. You have to groom them, talk to them, nuzzle them, and you can even teach the dog tricks. With the farm animals comes a degree of maintence as well. You can wash them, milk them, sheer them, breed them, sell off their eggs, etc. After all, the heart of the game is making a profit.


You have to buy your seeds from another farmer. If you go to their house, and they aren't home, you have to wait until they come back.

You can chose to either sell during the day (if you have time to go down and make a stand in the middle of the town while maintaining the chores of your farm- which actually, believe it or not, goes quicker then you would think). Or, you can have your friend locally do it- for no charge. Money and orders (you can order various items and tools from a slip) are given at the beguinning of each day when you check the slip.

On certain days, there will be a special vendor in town. It is here that you can get some pretty helpful items. You can buy a fishing pole, and a brush from him for example. Both are things that you will appreciate later.

In time, you can get enough money to buy things that will improve your farm. Such as extentions and things to help you with your harvesting and animal needs.

In the midst of this all, you can also take time to relax. And, of course, you can fish. Here, there doesn't show vibration like I would like either, but it is more entertaining, since you do it more sporadically.

Oh, and then there's another fun part. To quote the instruction book- "it's not all hoe for dough." Part of the game involves trying to court a girl. You can get her gifts by various ways. There are 4 girls in the PS2 Special Edition version to choose from. Each girl has different ideas of how to tickle her fancy. So, choose wisely. Some girls can be "more expensive" than others to keep happy. Oh, don't we all love that reality huh? Women.... Ahem!

Last, but not least, excavating. There is a place where you can work and dig up things. The excavatator will allow you to keep some of your items. Items can then be sold to other NPCs.

Now granted, there are a few other things I did leave out. But, you get the general idea of it.

You play in days. Like I said earlier, time goes by faster than you would think. You will get tired. You will need food. There is so much to do, and you run out of time faster than you would assume. I'm only on my 9th day so far, and I've been playing all day.

Furthermore, after giving you the basic runthrough of the basics.. which one do you think I'll be playing more? Yeah, um, that's right. Fisher King is now another coaster right now. If you are even remotely interested in getting one of these niche games- between these 2, it's no contest. Harvest Moon (even now) still doesn't fail to amaze.
Happy farming =)


*I also do have to apologize for these horrendous images- games look much better when you actually play them. Score 1 for the net today, I lose =p