Harvest Moon: A New Beginning is, as the name implies, an attempt to begin anew. With a fresh start to a franchise long considered stale, A New Beginning hopes to bring new ideas to the table and bring back the flare to the popular farm simulator. Yet, despite a lot of interesting additions A New Beginning cannot hide its slow and tedious core.
In similar vein to past entries, A New Beginning opens up with you inheriting an old run-down farm with the task of restoring it to its former glory. From there on out you will grow crops, take care of animals, attend festivals, befriend the local villagers and eventually find your loved one in typical Harvest Moon fashion.
What sets this particular title apart from the rest is how Echo Village – the town you just moved into – is almost entirely uninhabited. With the help of the mayor it is your task to bring back life to the community! This means that in addition to your daily farming routine, you now also have a list of set objectives to fulfill if you wish to progress through the game and unlock more villagers.
The most welcome new feature, however, is the emphasis on customization. For the first time in the franchise you can not only create your own character, but you can also fully customize the layout of your farm and town. By completing different objectives you will unlock more blueprints, allowing you to create buildings that can then be placed anywhere on the map. While the options can sadly be rather limited, it certainly does help make A New Beginning stand out and feel slightly more personal.
Unfortunately, a poor implementation of these new mechanics soon rears its ugly head and ruins what otherwise truly could have been a new beginning.
The first issue comes in the form of the objectives you need to complete. By hiding the townÂ’s growth behind these arbitrarily goals, the game is stripped of all the fun the Harvest Moon franchise is known for. To progress you often need to create a variation of buildings and items that in turn require different materials. The problem arises when you lack the required materials to progress, which can completely stop you from progressing until the correct in-game season will provide you with the material. This is not something desired, as a lack of progression means the town will not develop and no new features or bachelors/bachelorettes will be added.
With the risk of getting stuck, A New Beginning ends up becoming a game focused on hoarding rather than farming. Every little item you forage ends up stored in a shed instead of sold, defeating the entire purpose of the game.
This would not be a problem if not the gameplay itself was so slow and tedious, however. Everything you do in A New Beginning will take a lot of time, whether it is taking care of animals or merely walking around talking with the villagers. The animations are sluggish and you are required to go through a set of menus every time you want to give treats, food or gifts to others. Even taking care of crops takes an immense amount of time as you can only fertilize and pick up one crop at a time. Furthermore, as if to make matters worse, the frame rate is low and choppy if you are in the town or farm area, the latter being the place you will spend most time at.
With no other redeeming qualities to make up for this repetitive core, there is not much fun to be had. There are no interesting villagers to interact with – everyone only being mere archetypes rather than full-fledged characters – nor are there any exciting festivals to participate in. The graphics are empty-looking and the soundtrack only consists of a handful short and simple tracks that will soon get on your nerves.
As a result of all this, the delicate fine line between “enjoyable” and “boring” the Harvest Moon franchise has always balanced on has been severed and it shows: A New Beginning is nothing but a chore.
