Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness Video Games
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 Rating: - Happy Tenth; Good Fun
The Great:
While I can't say why some are upset about this, but the game uses the stylus nearly perfectly, in my opinion. (After all, it IS a game for the Nintendo DS, and therefore should use the system's unique game play mechanisms.) The game play is entirely stylus oriented, and I have never accidentally dropped anything due to it. You can tap very lightly (at least I can on my DS Lite) to get things done, and the movements are smooth and easy to pick up and play.

There is other factors that add to realistic game play, such as the addition of a hunger bar. Depending on how hungry you are, you will get up at different times and do better or worse at your tasks.

The Good:
There are new crops to grow, including rice and mushrooms. The game play is similar to ToT and older HM games, but harder and more directly oriented to how you play; if you fish a lot, a fisherman will come in. Buy a chicken coop or barn & the store will now carry animals to buy. If you pay to open a bridge, you will have more inhabitants move into that area, or you will meet locals. The more you spend in town, the more people will come and the more the shops will expand.

Dialogue is a bit less repetitive, but still needs work; now there is morning, afternoon, and evening dialogues in addition to the ones that change the more you get to know the people.

There are many characters, including ones from More Friends of Mineral Town, and six bachelors and six bachelorettes, not to mention all the townies and harvest sprites. You also get more direct interactions with the Harvest Goddess. There is a much, much wider range of emotions for giving gifts; anywhere from super happy to horrified (around five levels, I believe).

The weather is now predicted far in advance, so you can't cheat it, and it has a much larger range as well (storm, rain, drizzle, cloudy, sunny, hot, snowing, snowstorm).

The upgrading system has been entirely reworked; now if you get an item called a Wonderful, your item can be upgraded by using it, to do things like increase area that it effects, decrease stamina it uses, or enable it to take down more things, and the Wonderfuls can be freely traded from weapon to weapon, enabling you to customize them quite a bit.

Crop growing is now harder and more realistic; crops need a certain amount of sunlight and water to grow (such as 10 days of sun and ten of water). yes, this makes it harder, but you can find guides to help you calculate how much to give them, if need be. For most crops though, you are fine with watering them every day until they are ripe, but you won't get the highest quality fruit and will occasionally overwater crops. (A greenhouse can make things easier, once you have the money.)

The Bad:
I got this game and Tree of Tranquility at the same time, and truly, I wish this game had some of the new features ToT did, just a few simple ones like adding more animals other than a horse, a dog, sheep, cows, and chickens. (I miss my pig.) Also, you can't house too many animals, I believe eight is the maximum in your barn, after upgrades.

While the dialogue is improved quite a bit, but as said before, they could have done more than just 4 strings (one for morning, afternoon, and evening, and then one general string said for talking to them repeatedly.)

Music still shuts off at night, and there isn't any in winter. While it makes sense in some ways, it would be nicer to simply have the music softer (such as how they did in Tree of Tranquility).

Good or Bad, A Few Up For Debate:
You will have to play about four game years to get everything done, so expect a long haul. I don't even think it's possible to unlock everything in the first year. This is not counting time spent raising a child; if you want the full life part, it will be about four years for marriage, one half year to have the baby, two years of toddlerhood, and two years where the child can walk (but he/she won't help you out around the farm like your child did in older games). This is good for people who like a harder game, but bad for those who liked how easy the old HM games were.

While I understand most games do not have this feature, simulation games tend to be the better, but you cannot marry someone of the same gender in your game. This is good for parents who want a squeaky clean game for their children, but bad for people who want same-gender marriages, or even just people who want to unlock all the bachelor(ette)s scenes; you have to go through the game in two files then.


Overall though, I find this game fantastic. Yes, it's quite long, but there is enough to do to keep me entertained. There is something people should know though; in Japan there is a game called, translated, "Shining Sun & Friends." It is basically almost the same as IoH, but with far more content. The English release of this game isn't even announced yet though.

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