Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley

« It’s not unique but did offer a satisfying distraction. »

« I wish farm life in Harvest Moon 3D: The Lost Valley was more gratifying because its fundamental ideas are all there. With the franchise essentially split in two going forward, I encourage Natsume to continue its experimental ways, because it's likely that the other guys will churn out the most traditional experiences possible. »

« The game starts off way too slow and fails to grab your attention. There are some cool new features, but these won’t compensate for the cons, which are the difficult controls and almost no use of 3D graphics. »

« The game is obviously not Harvest Moon as we know it or even a "real" Harvest Moon game, but even when taken on its own merits and values, it's simply a throwaway game. »

« Natsume tried everything to give an identity to the latest Harvest Moon. The result, though, is too slow and boring. »

« With no village to visit, drive-thru interactions with NPCs outside of the player’s front door, and overly slow pacing in the narrative, Lost Valley feels like half of a really fun game. »

« While there are some creative innovations Tabot implemented that Marvelous could've considered, The Lost Valley lacks the soul that previous Harvest Moons had. [Issue #14: Old vs. New – March/April 2015, p.71] »

« Harvest Moon: the Lost Valley could easily depart from the Harvest Moon formula and stand out on its own. Instead it ends up steering away from the series and not satisfying neither the Harvest Moon fans nor those expecting something different. »

« Poorly written/coded and created after the split with Marvelous. Court gave them the title but they did not have any of the development staff. Original development staff of previous Harvest Moon games now create a game called Story of Seasons. Has none of the charm of previous games. Characters are bland. Disappointing for sure and the story was nonexistent compared to previous entries by the original developers. Change over to Story of Seasons to find your satisfaction. »

« It's an okay game, don't get me wrong and as someone that enjoys these types of games, I wasn't disappointed. But those who are here for a good story and fleshed out characters may be disappointed. »

« Pros +Very streamlined controls +In depth crop system that allows for huge variety of crops +Entire mountain to cultivate & develop +You play direct role in town economy, you provide flowers to florist to sell, produce & food to restaurant, etc +Charming characters each w individual story line to unlock +Quests give constant purpose to each day +Cute story that has major influences on world & develops relationship w characters +Overall very simple relaxing game to pick up and play at the end of a stressful day Cons -Art quality is poor with hardly any detail, seems little effort was put in here -Very limited marriage choices -Can only have cows, sheep and chickens as livestock -No tool upgrades, limits how much you can farm (harvest sprites can do a lot of work for you if you befriend them but only work every other day and take weekends off...) -Festivals are incredibly bland (no decorations!), lacking in variety and repetitive. -Nitpicking but why have the dog involved in herding if it doesn't actually do anything? You still need the harvest sprite to move cows & sheep out of the barn (can't let chickens out for some reason) -In all but the crop system it is a huge step back from previous HM games content wise, very limited content here Summary: Lost Valley if reviewed without previous Harvest Moon games in mind is a charming little title that is relaxing and enjoyable to play. Its simplicity and ease to pick up makes it very accessible to a wide variety of gamers. However an HM veteran may feel cheated at the massive lack of content compared to previous games. I would have rated it at least a 5 as I had and continue to have a good time playing this game despite the significant downgrade in content compared to past titles, but the art is just so painfully bad with such little effort put in. Still I would recommend if you want a simple & cute farming game to pass the time with. »

« As is obvious, this game did not do well. However some still enjoyed it and I will focus on the reasons why I did. This game makes you work for everything. Not just unlocking new characters and areas, you have to work to unlock each season. It t is slow paced, be warned, but I found it to be rewarding and I really enjoyed the progression. I felt more motivated to fulfill objectives in this game than other HM games. I also liked the new concept of altering your environment and using this to create new crop mutations. I wont recommend this game to everyone, but if you enjoy sandbox environment crafting and slower paced games, then maybe you are the type to enjoy this game. I certainly did. »

« Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is an ugly, watered down, and ultimately boring installment in this otherwise mostly great series. After a big step in the right direction with Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning there was an even bigger regression with this game. First, the graphics are downright terrible. Who thought giving everyone huge eyes and a chibi design was a good idea? I bet they thought it looked "cute" but all I see is "demonic and desperate". That's not to mention the Lost Valley itself. You'll be spending 2/3's of your time in this desolant waste land of re-used textures and terrible rendering. Until a few hours in, this place is empty. What happened to the varied landscapes and non-ugly characters in A New Beginning? Secondly, when you compare this to other Harvest Moon games, it's flaws become highly apparent. Giving you all farmland and no town to explore is a terrible idea, NPCs are few and far between and are so boring, the 3D landscape makes harvesting and watering plants a needless hassle, I could go on but I'll just say this, it's bad when the first game in the series, an SNES game, has more enjoyment and depth than this full-priced, 3DS game. Lastly, this game is borderline sleep inducing it's so boring! Unlike the highly addictive gameplay of the previous installments, there's no incentive to farm because it's so time consuming and uninteresting. I don't care if I'm broke or if I freeze to death because unlike other installments farming isn't streamlined or interesting. The only positive I can give this game is it isn't a glitchy mess and MIGHT be a better value than say something like FarmVille on the App Store. But even then, that games only costs a few dollars, you might have to pay over fourty dollars for this steaming lump of bile! Don't buy this game, if you want a proper 3DS Harvest Moon experience get A New Beginning or at the very least download a classic Harvest Moon title off the E-Shop's Virtual Console. Even the minimal Harvest Moon Gamebiy games will give you more enjoyment than this. »

« the game is similar to the old snes game it makes the player an even more free world to explore and change while natsume tries to make the game a more ope world farming game story of seasons make's the game about the connection's you make with the people and both have something to offer while i think natsume is experimenting to find their own way two different harvest moon games for two different groups of audience. »

« As a fan of the series i really think this game shouldn't be called Harvest moon, it lacks the feeling. the new aspects aren't bad but i feel like it replaced the core that should be in a harvest moon game. it's disappointing and if you are new to the series, don't buy this game, spent your money well and buy one of the older entries. »

« Having read about the split in the series known as Harvest Moon I was initially highly dubious about this first attempt by Natusme at their own farming game. However reading reviews about the actual game rather than those just upset at the split convinced me to give it a go. This game reminds me of the original Harvest Moon on the SNES as the only thing to do is farm. You can grow as many crops as you like (I currently have over 100 growing at once) and put them wherever you like in the valley. The growing conditions, height of the land, swamp or normal, season etc, can affect your crops giving you mutations. There are meant to be 10 types of each crop due to these mutations and I must admit this feature is the one that really made me try the game. At the beginning it is hard to get mutations as the valley is stuck in winter. However I have accidently made some flower mutations and one crop (strawberry). I am really looking forward to finding out what different conditions cause these effects so I'm avoiding walkthroughs so I get the thrill of discovering them for myself. Basic animals are available, cows, sheep, chickens, and horses. There are areas you can mine at some point and fishing is possible. These are more extras though than the huge mines seen in some previous installments like Animal Parade and Tree of Tranquility. There isn't a town to visit, people just come into the valley or outside your house on certain days of the week. If you love spending time in HM chatting to all the people in town, mining, fishing etc rather than watering crops and caring for cows then this isn't the game for you. If you are a bit of a hermit farmer like me then you will probably love this game like I do as it goes backs to the sheer basics of farming. »