Once again I come bearing a new GameCube game to review. This time out it’s the Late July 2005 release of the newest Harvest Moon game “Harvest Moon : Another Wonderful Life”

This is, to say the least, Natsume‘s darkest hour in their farming RPG series to date. Why? Because Natsume is not exactly known for churning out sequels, and if you look at this title you’d think that was exactly what you were getting, a sequel. Sadly it seems this assumption would be most certainly wrong, as this game is not as much a sequel per se as it is an attempt to dodge serious work. How so? Here.

Question : How much of the new Harvest Moon game is new?
Answer : Very very little from what I’ve seen of this game so far, and that would be the equivelant of one review. One single, solitary review from a show I never ever watch (Judgment Day) as the hosts are extremely annoying and their firing will only pave the way for another 30 minute spot for far more interesting to watch X-Play re-runs to be shown in it‘s place.

But since you’re here to read a review, and not read about my endless fascination with X-Play, let’s stick to the topic at hand (the game). Once again unfolding in the same life spanning gameplay as Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life (mostly because it‘s just Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life with a female character instead of a male one), you now play a female character who has found herself in the same village as the male character from the previous game, in charge of the same farm as the previous male character with the same assistant, same dog, same neighbors, same everything. So, yes, for all intents and purposes it’s the same game as the previous GameCube game… only with a few new bells and whistles.

Question : Does this mean the game is just a rethread of the original Wonderful Life game?
Answer : Most likely yes. Natsume this time seems to have taken the lazy way out of making Another Wonderful Life, and they should probably be ashamed of themselves for doing such a thing.
Instead of going out of their way to make a brand new world (or

at least village) for this game, they simply took the gaming engine of A Wonderful Life and recycled it (without even having the decency to even attempt to make it look different) for Another Wonderful Life, complete with a few new twists and turns but not much else. It’s like giving a slightly old car a new (alibt slightly thin) coat of paint and then turning around to proclaim it‘s a brand spanking new car that you just made in the factory. Bull. The car may seem new but underneath the car is the same old car as before. Natsume you should be ashamed of yourselves! You’re attempting to recycle your old stuff with minimum revitalization just like how Toei “revamps” their Dynasty Warriors games over and over again, which is just plain lazy of you! And if I wanted to play a lazy attempt at a game that’s just a rethread of a previous game with so-so tweaks and (hopefully) fresh cut scenes and new characters I’d be playing Dynasty Warriors 5, not this!!

What Is Different?
Don’t expect the laundry list of new things to be terribly long at this point.
With only a base minimum of information to go on, both from that one review and from Nintendo’s own site, there isn’t much I can say about this game… I can say this, however.

- With this version we’ll have whole new crops to deal with. New types, which will no doubt lead to new recipes and new hybrids, are a mark on the game’s gameplay according to the back of the game case.
Now what new crops (and new hybrids) haven’t been said, but since there’s a wide variety of stuff used in previous Harvest Moon games (handheld & major system) to choose from that wasn’t used in the Wonderful Life game (for starters) I’m sure there’s some variety as to what they could use for this game that‘s new. This means you’ll need to spend more time than before to tinker with the seeds and find new hybrids to make (both 2nd & 3rd generation wise).

- Somehow this game might include a game engine that makes it important to forge those good friendships with friends and family since that is supposed to change the way you

are played. How it differs from the system that compelled you to make friends in the previous game isn’t entirely clear though.

- Win the man of your hearts (as opposed to winning the woman of your hearts before)… if you can.

And that’s about it. Lazy, huh?

What the above says about differences?
First off since there’s supposed to be “new seeds” I’ll take it that means new crops.
And, going on that trend of thought, new crops equal new recipes for the new food products. At least that’s the chain of unbreakable logic I come up with from that one tangent, though I could be wrong about that… hopefully not.

And while I’m at it that should mean we might see new TV programming on the TV… maybe new variety shows on the Variety channel? That’d be nice. Then again anything that shows any signs of new work done on this series would be most helpful.

As for eligible males? Guess that means we need new ones since we need at least three eligible males since, sadly, the people at Natsume has not embraced their inner lesbian by having a scenario where your girl runs off with one of the eligible females from the last game… that’d be too original for Natsume, the educational video game makers, to even think of. Of course Rock, from the inn, would be one of the males that would be available… but then what? Hmm… maybe the boy who jogs with his father? Could that be No. 2?
How about the guy who works at the farm next door -- uh -- nah.
There’s going to have to be at least 1-2 new males in this game for choice, since (again) Natsume isn’t throwing open the alternate lifestyles choices here with a lesbian marriage possibility.

What is the Same?
You mean besides almost everything?
Raising animals is the same as before. We have chickens, but whether or not the ducks return remains to be seen (guess you need to build a pond to find out). And we also have cows (who probably still need to be impregnated in order to keep the milk flowing), sheep and horses… and probably a goat too if this is truly the same as Wonderful Life. Hopefully, however, the glitch where you can’t sell the

goat is gone.

Once again you are picking friends that will influence you, and how you raise your child (who sadly seems to be a boy only affair again since it seems to be totally evil if you give birth to a baby girl).
Somehow I wished this would have either been thrown out or improved (fleshed out) though I think this is probably the same gimmick from last game… somehow.

There is very little known about Another Wonderful Life, even less about the changes and whether these changes erased the glitches from the last game (polishing up the gameplay to make it more sturdy over the last time I played this game). What glitches? Be sure to read my last review of “A Wonderful Life” for all the heads up on those, just so you know. All I know is that this game is a lazy game that is A Wonderful Life in female persona and not much else. A big disappointment for me since I was expecting more.
Even if Natsume revived the old PS2 game engine and expanded it for longer gameplay that would still be a far better improvement (and more original game) over rehashing A Wonderful Life all over again.
And as I wait for the release I become more and more concerned that the game is nothing more than a rethreaded release of the original game with only cosmetic changes to make it at least appear to be something “new” and “original” which it might very well not be in consideration.

Whatever the hell Natsume was thinking when they hatched this oh-so lazy plot for Another Wonderful Life is just unknown to me… and given the fact the game is such a ripoff of the original maybe I don’t want to know whatever was going through their minds when they dreamed up Another Wonderful Life. At least I hope the GBA version, More Friends of Mineral Town, is better than Another Wonderful Life. It is our only hope, it seems. Damn. Why? Because I’m thinking it’s another lazy remake, this time of the nicely done PSOne Harvest Moon turned GBA game (Friends of Mineral Town). Do we need more lazy remakes from Natsume? No, no we don’t! Please, Natsume, no more! No more!