 Preview By: Siou Choy |
Developer: | Marvelous Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Rising Star Games | |
| Genre: | Simulation | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1-4 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Nunchuk; Europe-only remake | |
| Estimated Release: | Cancelled |
European gamers, break out your straw hat and overalls because Harvest Moon: Magical Melody is making it’s way to the Nintendo Wii. HM:MM will be a direct port of the last year’s GameCube version, as brought to gamers by Marvelous Interactive’s European wing, Rising Star Games.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody brought the Harvest Moon series back on track from its misguided veer off-course into Animal Crossing territory (the comparatively execrable It’s a Wonderful Life) to its farming-RPG roots. For those unfamiliar with the basic plot, in this entry you compete against a strange looking rival named Jamie to see who can run the better farm. A little side quest comes from on high, as well, as you are asked to help free the harvest goddess by finding and returning some missing magical notes.
Since the current release of Harvest Moon: Magical Melody is just a port of the GameCube version, a few extras might be expected to draw in the newbies. The most important of these would be making good use of the Wii Remote, to hopefully enable gamers to perform their farming chores Wii-style. While we know that the company plans on some Wii Remote functionality, exactly how it will be used is still unknown. Hopefully, despite being a cross-console port, there will also be something of an upgrade in graphics, or at least the option to use your Mii of choice in place of the usual, more or less generic farmer design as used in most every Harvest Moon game released to date. Given the fact that Rising Star is using GameCube screenshots to promote the game however, we aren’t very optimistic on that.
Right now the game’s re-release seems to be a crop only Europe will harvest, but if it’s confirmed for release in North America we’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, you can dream of what might be by checking out our review of the GameCube version here.
Posted: 2007-10-06 14:25:02 PST