Harvest Moon Magical Melody ISO

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
A wonderful game with fun graphics and character models. The main basis of the plot is that the Goddess has been turned into stone and the protagonist has to collect these magical notes by doing different kinds of tasks that range from walking a certain number of steps to, raising a animal, and winning festivals and such. You start out with the option to pick between three different lots of lands to begin your farm. From there you'll farm crops, raise animals, and buy more plots of land to expand your farm. There is much to do in this Harvest Moon, and its fun playing a farmer.

Harvest Moon Magical Melody is a fine addition to the Harvest Moon franchise, offering many features from previous installments that people loved while also bringing in new features to keep it fresh.

The basis of Magical Melody is to collect achievements throughout the game in the form of Musical notes, these will be explained in-game at a greater depth, but know they are fun and addicting to collect. Getting notes can be challenging at times which makes the rewards for collecting them even better and more satisfying. The game plays smoothly and there's no set time limit on getting married or the like so you have as much time as you want to play the game and enjoy it at your pace.

I find myself always looking back on this game as one of the better Harvest Moons due to how it's setup. All the characters feel more alive. The rival system also makes you want to strive to get better, whether by mining, farming, ranching, or a combination of all three, you will enjoy this game. There's also cooking which always adds another element of spice to any Harvest Moon game, while the cooking itself is simple, it can still be very fun to collect recipes and make a lot of unique dishes.

One of the better features for people newer to the Harvest Moon side of gaming is that there's no "Skills" for your items, while I personally find this lacking, many people including my family enjoy this vs the normal "Use and get better/use less stamina" system that newer Harvest Moons seem to have. The only thing that depends on lowering the Stamina is buying upgrades for your tools. Giving you some immersion as you HAVE to go mining and get ores, melt them down into the proper bars and then get the upgrade. All of which can take several weeks in game between doing other things, foraging- conversing and the like.

Speaking of conversing, there's more to this game than just people's social lives, you can find and befriend the wildlife in the area, from monkeys, birds, and even a Dolphin! This game has a lot to offer. Speaking of which, marriage is available for both genders. There's a wide range of bachelor/ bachelorettes to choose from. Some kind, some timid, some just right.

That all said, this game is made for younger audiences, most systems, cooking included are lesser than others, with no Stamina loss for cooking, a "throw everything in the recipe calls for and like magic it's done in a moment." The game is still fun, later you're able to purchase more land and expand your farm to other plots.

I give this game 5/5, everything you'd expect from a Harvest Moon game on the GCN; while offering new and fun things that previous games didn't have or couldn't add. The 3D chibi like style is really adorable and it makes the entire game feel friendly, like you're always welcome no matter what you do.

As a Harvest moon game, it leaves something to be desired. The inablity to quickly identify items without placing them in your pack is inconvenient. The stamina bar is a welcome change. The choices in this game are very open ended, with different properties to choose from, gender, and the ability to use "public" land for farming. The list menu is a very good change, it listing all the books you have read, and storing all your recipes in one place. The suitor options are plentiful, whether you are a boy or girl, with 11 to choose from either way. All in all, a great gamecube game, but only a decent Harvest Moon game.