If the ‘Uncanny Valley’ is the time period for one thing being almost-human-but-not-quite, then Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos is within the Uncanny Stardew Valley. It is so near being a extremely good farming sim recreation, however does not fairly handle to hit the mark. Nonetheless, for the primary time within the turbulent and complicated historical past of Natsume’s Harvest Moon video games, it is truly… enjoyable.
The story is similar previous, standard: the Harvest Goddess disappears after some catastrophic geographical occasion, and it is as much as us to revive her and the world by the facility of farming. The twist right here is {that a} volcano erupted, and Ms. Goddess determined to construct a bunch of partitions round all of the villages, thus each defending them and isolating them in a single fell swoop. You may need to dismantle the partitions, befriend the Sprites dwelling inside them, and revitalise the cities inside, principally by finishing varied fetch quests. The story does not make a lot of sense — everybody could be very chill about getting separated from their households for a decade — but it surely’s ok to get began with.
In the event you’ve performed the earlier video games, then you definately may be excited or upset to listen to that the mutated and seasonal crops are again, in addition to the necessity to gather seeds from Harvest Wisps hidden on the planet. In some way, in Winds of Anthos, this beforehand tedious busywork is definitely an attractive motive to discover the big map — and it has been improved, too, with map tags and markers for particular seeds making them a lot simpler to seek out. You may additionally uncover uncommon crops, fish, tree fruits, and tameable animals by exploration, in addition to mines, every one offering distinctive metals and ores that you will want to finish quests and unlock upgrades.
Mining is fairly surface-level in Winds of Anthos — hit rocks and dig soil to seek out stuff — however dowsing with the ‘B’ button offers you a highlighted radius of the place the good things is. Smaller circles imply rarer ores, and medium-sized circles could possibly be something from ore, to a ladder, to a gap that’ll drop you just a few flooring at the price of stamina. The grind is nearly fascinating sufficient to make up for the uninteresting and repetitive mine interiors, and with tons of of flooring to get by (plus a checkpoint on each tenth flooring), it will take you some time to unravel every one.
In comparison with mining and exploration, farming and animal husbandry take fairly a backseat. A lot of the story quests require supplies discovered within the mines, with the occasional onion or turnip right here and there, so you’d be forgiven for pondering that crop-growing was all about creating wealth. Nope! The crops promote for a pittance, and fishing is vastly extra profitable. So, cooking, then? Properly, the stamina meter within the recreation empties fairly shortly, it is true, however the meals recipes do not actually get good till the mid recreation, so that you’re higher off simply scarfing 20 apples as a substitute of cooking one thing.
So, what is the purpose in farming, then — particularly when the sport presents a frankly overwhelming choice of extremely particular crops? We will settle for the distinction between onions and crimson onions, however why on earth are carrots and child carrots separate? They’re the identical factor! Ditto with crops like celery and spicy celery, or wheat and “tall wheat”. Severely? That is feeling dangerously like busywork once more, Natsume.
Now we have but to essentially discover a compelling motive to farm, however with sprinklers and fences to guard our crops from storms, it hasn’t actually been an excessive amount of work to simply do it anyway — particularly when a number of of the farms on the map (which you’ll change between at any level) are locked into a selected season, letting you simply develop seasonal crop mutations.
That overwhelming selection additionally applies to animals, too. You possibly can tame horses (boring), or you possibly can experience zebras, camels, and dinosaurs; you will get a cat as a pet, or tame a wild ferret as a substitute. Chickens are uninteresting, why not get an Araucana, or ditch all of your cows for a Bengal Tiger? It helps that every one the animal designs are truly cute, too — extra according to the bubble cows of the previous than the uncomfortably sensible designs of previous video games. And that is what all of us need, is not it?
Oh, and the NPCs are cute, too. Affected by a case of same-face syndrome right here and there, to make certain, however we would nonetheless marry them… if we had any time. The massive map and the plethora of issues to do make marriage a much less engaging prospect — like we’ll hold burning valuable daylight schlepping again to Judy or Neil to offer them a single apple after we could possibly be doing one thing else that makes us cash? Nah. We’re single farmers for all times.
Within the late recreation, issues get each simpler and far, a lot more durable. Unlocking new animals and areas, in addition to fast-travel factors, offers each a motive for and a way to journey all over the world. Later areas are onerous to get to, and typically even require particular objects to outlive the warmth/chilly, but it surely retains the problem going.
Sadly, the issue ramps up considerably. Quests hold requiring obscure objects like Platinum and Excessive-High quality Lumber with out telling you ways, or the place, and even when to seek out them (as many objects are season-specific). The frequent body drops everytime you’re in your horse (or zebra, or unicorn) are dangerous on their very own, however after they begin taking place IN A HORSE RACE, making you lose first place, you will need to make a name to the glue manufacturing unit. Not with the ability to stroll over small ledges is an outdated design determination, and a lot of the map exploration will revolve round looking for the on-ramp to a little bit of land with out the map, as a result of you possibly can’t unlock the map with out first getting into the world. And when you get to the volcano space, you will curse whoever got here up with the concept of constructing a maze that is darker than the within of your eyelids and twistier than a pirouetting Flump.
All in all, regardless of the problems, Winds of Anthos is definitely Natsume’s greatest effort but. It deserves to be counted amongst the plethora of fairly respectable farming video games. However Natsume cannot hope to succeed in the heights of Buddies of Mineral City or Stardew Valley till it develops its personal distinctive fashion additional and irons out just a few of the wrinkles that make the sport a slog. It is so shut, although, for the primary time in ages… and that is really price one thing.
Conclusion
You almost certainly know that Harvest Moon has been pants for some time now, and Story of Seasons hasn’t been a lot better. For these of us who’ve been burned earlier than by Natsume’s underbaked choices, we weren’t anticipating greatness from Winds of Anthos. However for as soon as, this latest recreation is a step in the fitting path, establishing Natsume’s voice ultimately in a crowded market. Here is hoping the following Harvest Moon goes even more durable.
