[Review] Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, Part One - Spring and Summer, Year 1

It requires some work to keep track of why two Harvest Moon games are being released, one without the Harvest Moon title, but which resembles Harvest Moon games most closely (Story of Seasons) and one with the Harvest Moon title, but very dissimilar to normal Harvest Moon (Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley). I am not going to get into that, but essentially what you need to know is that the games carrying the Harvest Moon name in the United States are no longer Harvest Moon games. Here is a fine article that outlines the situation most clearly.

The Lost Valley was just released on November 4th, and I very nearly didn't bother to pre-order it. I ended up doing so the day before it was released, with the facetious reasoning that I really wanted the plushie dog that came with the pre-orders. The game has a heavy Minecraft influence in the art style, which I've never liked, and I wasn't quite sure about it. I've played it quite a bit since it's release, to the extent that I feel comfortable giving this review. I'm going to be following with a lot of negativity before I get to the positivity, so to offset it, I would like to open with this statement: this will not satisfy any Harvest Moon cravings you might have, but judged on its own merits, Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is a fine game.

Long time Harvest Moon fans will be sorely disappointed by the lack of a town; limited interactions with animals; the odd fact that cows must completely finish eating before you can finally milk them and can't go outside more than once every other day (provided it isn't snowing, which it does, often), since a Harvest Sprite must let them out to graze; crops that may "grow better" in certain seasons, but are not limited to them; an entire year of winter; the end of gift-giving to woo NPCs into friendships or romantic relationships, which takes agency away from the player; an end to the recent gathering craze that's taken over the Harvest Moon franchise since Tale of Two Towns; only three romance options for each gender; and continue.

The Lost Valley is trimmed down to the bare bones. The game is not even 3D, so don't even bother turning it on. You can't customize your character at all, though there you can eventually change outfits-- somehow. The game swears it, but I haven't figured out how yet. Minutes in the game run faster than 1 minute in game per 1 second in real time-- you're even warned about it by one of the Harvest Sprites (now resembling Teletubbies) who says that "time runs fast out in the valley." Above all else, The Lost Valley is a lonely game. If this were a traditional Harvest Moon game, there would be the town, the forest, the mountain peak, and the river area. The Lost Valley takes place entirely in the forest/mountain/river areas, and cuts out the town. You might see merchants when they stop in a couple days a week, and some of the villagers might decide to wander around, but essentially, your character is a crazy mountain hermit who is managing to grow crops in the dead of winter solely by the grace of the Harvest Sprites. There's not much you can really do besides farm.

This is everything that The Lost Valley isn't. So what is the game, exactly?

You begin the game travelling through the mountain pass into the Lost Valley. You are saved from a blizzard by a Harvest Sprite, drawn into a warm cabin with a cozy stove and some cheerful decorations. You begin receiving strange, hazy, prophetic dreams and are soon drawn into a quest to wake the Harvests Goddess and help restore seasons to this place, driven all the while by the urging of sprites, the goddess, and what you see while you sleep. This gives the game a very familiar, fairy tale feel.

You start working the fields. Your only initial company is a single Harvest Sprite and a sketchy merchant, who will sell you things at high prices and buy them at low prices, since the reason he makes the trek to the mountains is because he thinks you're gullible. Slowly, other characters begin to come by. The Harvest Goddess wakes up, and you have to fulfill requirements to get the Crystals that power her bracelet, which controls the seasons. You build friendships with the characters who appear by supplying items for their requests. These items range from flowers of a certain color to lumber to various crops. You'll unlock Spring just in time for it to turn to Summer, which actually means cold, icy winter, again. I imagine I'll unlock Fall just in time for it to turn to Winter, which means I will have to get through an entire season with very little to do until it's finally Spring again.

Due to how pared down the systems are for fishing, growing crops, and caring for animals-- as well as the fact that you have virtually no need to spend money on anything except seeds-- I ended up farming far more than in previous Harvest Moon games. You also end up using the game's Minecraft features a great deal.

By pressing the Y button, you open up a menu which has options from dig, fill, till, shovel snow, fill/dig water path, etc. The entire valley belongs to you, so you can shape the terrain any way you want. You can make lovely raised beds for crops, or create a set of stairs to reach the Harvest Goddess, level most of the mountain to the ground, widen the river, enlarge the falls, etc. Your choice. This is honestly one of the few ways available to you to pass your time. You also have ways of passing skills on through your animals and causing mutations in crops, which are some interesting innovations. The passing on of skills in particular gives you a real incentive to actually breeding your cows instead of just buying more.

Creating different feed requires the windmill, which you must unlock, and fodder recipes, as well as fodder corn so you can make the fodder. Different feed will cause your animals to have different skills, which they can pass on to their offspring. Crops can have different mutations (a Strawberry can produce a White Berry instead), but the cause can be hard to pin down.

This is not a game that really begins the first year, which is something I hate. Games should not make you play 20+ hours to get into the bulk of the content. It's one thing to gain more content over time, but to have so little you can do at the game's start makes the game seem sluggish and boring. The saving grace is that although things unlock slowly, it's a steady pace-- the dreams help you feel like things will happen soon, and the game clock is very quick.

As more merchants are attracted to the valley, you can buy new stock, and different merchants will buy different things from you at a higher rate. If you think about it, Sam, the initial merchant, will buy anything and everything from you, and probably sold them to the people you later attract, such as the florist and restaurant owner. So he bought them from you at a low price. When everyone else in Hillsville (the town you aren't allowed to go to in the game) finds out you exist, they cut out Sam as the middle man and buy your items from you directly at a higher rate. The restaurant owner buys ingredients, the florist buys flowers for bouquets, etc. This system is pretty great in comparison to the "dump everything in the shipping bin, where it will magically disappear into the ether" system of other Harvest Moon games. However, it would have been much better if there was a town and you had to go to different shops to peddle your products, rather than having them hang around your house two days a week to see if you happen to have anything to sell them.

The first season, I unlocked on the very last day of Spring, so I didn't get to see any green at all. The second season, I unlocked on Summer 20, so there are 10 glorious days of summer before I am forced into the bleak winter yet again. As new seasons unlock, more fish are available. New animals come out. Basically, the game starts. The Lost Valley is both incredibly easy, since you have so little you need to do, and difficult, in the sense that you have to work to achieve everything, even if that work is itself easy. A lot of the difficulty is needless, though, like having to wait forever to fulfill a request simply because you MUST talk to the character either in front of your house or at Moon Valley, rather than while they're walking around. And some things simply aren't explained well, like the circumstances of genetic mutation in your crops, which could be one of the neatest features of the game, if it made sense.

Overall, I'm giving this game a tentative thumbs up for the first two seasons/fifteen hours, but I would not pre-order if this game has a successor. Given a choice to go back in time, I'm not entirely certain I would buy it again either. The Lost Valley might provide an introduction to the Harvest Moon series for someone new to it, and with its simplicity and easy nature, it is accessible for younger players. Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley will not satisfy any Harvest Moon cravings you might have, but judged on its own merits, The Lost Valley is a competent and amusing game. For the hardcore gamer, however, it proves uninteresting and a little flat.