If you're familiar with Natsume's Harvest Moon series, then you'll relate to hours that I've devoted into this game. Harvest Moon, in a nutshell, is a game where you live on a farm, grow crops, take care of animals and start a family. To someone who has never played a game from this series, that probably doesn't sound appealing at all, but for me and a slew of other harvest moon fans, these games are the most addicting. Back to this game in particular, Tree of Tranquility is a breath of fresh air to the series. Finally Natsume grew enough balls to try something new. There are new animals, new characters, a whole new town and a new plot. Natsume is known to frequently reuse characters, towns and of course the "grandpa died and you inherit his ranch" story. It's so awesome to see something new. In this game, you have to save the goddess or some shit...not important. Let's look at all the awesome new features. For one, there's all the new animals. Of your animals you can have, of course, cows, horses, chickens and sheep. Goats and ducks are also in this game but they aren't completely new. The new ones, and most interesting ones, are the silkworms and ostriches. You can also breed every one of your animals (save for the silkworms). Your character can also ride either the ostrich or horse all around town. Another new feature is that you can breed your horse, Although I've yet to see the point of it.Another new feature I really enjoyed was how you can customize your character. You can change the clothing on your character by buying clothing at the tailor shop and changing in your home. Your home is also customizable by rearranging the furniture.
Also the fans asked for it, and Natsume granted it. After you character gets married and has a child, your child will grow up and help you on the farm. I've yet to get that far in the game so I can't say much about it, but I think it's very cute and it adds a lot of charm.
One major downside to this game (besides the "calvin glitch") is the loading time. Every time you change screens (like leaving or entering any building) you have to wait 7-10 tedious seconds for it to load. It can get very annoying, very quickly because during game play, you don't have a choice but to be entering and exiting buildings. I can only hope that this will no longer be a problem for Harvest Moons next Wii release "WakuWaku Animal March", which I am highly anticipating.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game a lot. It was very versatile and new and all the new features made it to be a very endearing game. It is put together very nicely and I think it is definitely worth a look.
My Rating: 8/10
Replay Value: 5/10 (You may have to wait a little while before wanting to pick this game up again)
This was a rushed review, I apologize for the lack of details of the game itself.
