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Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness | 
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| From: Natsume, Inc.
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $22.98
You Save: $7.01 (23%)
New (20) Used (6) from $22.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 447
Platform: Nintendo Ds
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Operating System: Nintendo DS
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0 x 0
MPN: 10007
Model: NDS10007
UPC: 719593100072
EAN: 0719593100072
ASIN: B00149TZ66
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW , GIFT QUALITY, FACTORY SEALED, IN STOCK AND READY TO SHIP TODAY.
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| Features:
| • | Play as a boy or a girl | | • | Attract settlers by building your farm | | • | Fall in love and start a family | | • | Explore the biggest portable Harvest Moon ever | | • | Compete against other ranchers via online with Nintendo Wi-Fi |
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| Accessories:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
You're shipwrecked! Luckily no one was hurt and most of the passengers set sail for their destinations, but you found an abandoned homestead on a remote island. With hard work and skillful farming, you will prosper and help your adventurous shipmates establish a new village with roads, bridges and exciting places to visit. There's a lot of farming to do, people to date and animals to care for. It's a new beginning and a chance to raise a farming family of your own.
Amazon.com
In Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness players' plans to start a new life are drastically changed when the ship you are on is destroyed by a tropical storm. Now you find yourself stranded on an isolated island with a family of four from the ship. However, it seems that the island once was inhabited before…what happened to the people that used to live there? As you develop the island by growing crops, taking care of animals and expanding your farm, others will start to move onto the island and this mystery may be solved. The better you do, the more the island will grow. Though it was not your original dream, now is your chance to create your very own paradise.
Create your own paradise |
Farming provides food and prestige.
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Find happiness with the perfect mate.
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Track character status and assets.
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Enjoy farm-flavored mini games.
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First Things First: Farming
Working with your fellow refugees, your first order of business is to create a farm. With what you grow you will soon be able to feed yourself and your fellow castaways and eventually will graduate to raising animals (some of the animals included are: cows, sheep, chickens and ducks). As you build up your farm, people who have an interest in the farming business move on over to the island and seek you out. These people open up shops and facilities, contributing to the island's development, and provide you with new areas to explore and new people to speak with.
Getting Married
What good is paradise without someone to share it with? Once players have established themselves on the island by building and maintaining a farm and successfully raising animals on their homestead they will begin to notice that there are quite a few more people on the island than they initially suspected. Like yourself, many of these new faces are looking for someone to share their lives with. In addition to success on the farm, marriage also requires a few other requirements, but once satisfied you are free to play the field, go on dates and search available profiles for that special someone. But be careful. You will not be compatible with everyone you meet. Just a few or the bachelors and bachelorettes you will run into are: | Name: Natalie
Gender: Female
Bio: Natalie is one of the people who is shipwrecked on the island with you. She can be rather rough, a tomboy and competitive, and usually makes fun of her brother. | !['Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness' bachelor #1: Vaughn]() | Name: Vaughn
Gender: Male
Bio: An exotic animal dealer, Vaughn has a very serious, almost emotionless attitude. He comes to the islands on Wednesdays and Thursdays and carries a lot of money. | !['Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness' bachelorette #2: Sabrina]() | Name: Sabrina
Gender: Female
Bio: Sabrina came to the island with her father, who is president of the mining company. She is a quiet, shy girl who helps her father with his work and is very interested in ores. | !['Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness' bachelor #2: Shea]() | Name: Shea
Gender: Male
Bio: Shea is the adopted son of the witch doctor, Wada. He helps Wada by guarding his hens, ducks and birds from the Demon Bears. Unlike other bachelors, his heart is invisible. | !['Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness' bachelorette #3: Witch Princess]() | Name: Witch Princess
Gender: Female
Bio: The Witch Princess grew tired of living in Forget-Me-Not Valley and so moved to the island in hopes of meeting new people. In addition, she heard that the Harvest Goddess is here. She keeps 21 small teddy bears and one large one in her house and has an invisible heart. | !['Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness' bachelor #3: Denny]() | Name: Denny
Gender: Male
Bio: Denny is very familiar with the sea. He heard there's a lot to be found on the island, so when his mother told him to meet new people he came to check it out. Though normally cheerful, he has quite a temper when mad. |
The island is full of challenges, but with hard work and skillful farming, you will prosper and help your adventurous shipmates establish a new village with roads, bridges and exciting places to visit. There's a lot of farming to do, people to date and animals to care for. It's a new beginning and a chance to raise a farming family of your own.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
Happy Tenth; Well Earned October 9, 2008
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.)
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. Sure, I may get a little tired of farming and growing crops, but there still is plenty to do, and the greater challenge is much appreciated. Happy Tenth Anniversary, Harvest Moon!
harvest moon fan October 8, 2008
I have been playing Harvest Moon games for 10 years. This one is another winner. It has some old and familar along with lots of new things. It took a few minutes to learn to use the stylus for everything, but after that I didn't even think about it. I am 5 (game) years into it and still have things to unlock. It is providing lots of play.
Great, but could be better... October 8, 2008
Once again the Harvest Moon series is spreading to another system and wowing customers. I liked it a lot. I'm a huge fan of Harvest Moon. They did a wonderful job integrating the stylus screen in this farming game. It is difficult to earn money though. Growing crops take longer than Harvest Moon DS too. Getting by is hard too. You have a stamina bar and a fullness bar... You NEED to eat in this game... or else! That and when you start the game there is only one eligible bachelor or bachelorette. No builder, no livestock seller and you start with two recipes, but no shop sells the ingredients needed to make them. Its a good game if you have a lot of time and patience. They will be needed if you plan on beating this game. Good luck and happy farming!
 My Opinion October 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was very excited about this game, I got it pretty much right after it came out. The only other HM game I've played was the original one, so I was excited to see all the new things on this game.
I noticed a lot of people having problems with the stylus control. In the beginning, it was a little awkward, but after playing it for a few weeks, I've pretty much got it under control. I have had some issues with getting stuck and dropping some things, but not really enough to be a bother.
My biggest problem was that gameplay was real slow in the beginning. For the first two "years", very little happened. After spring of the third year though, gameplay has gotten much better. Almost too much is going on now. My advice on this is just stick with it, because eventually it will pick up.
I've only just started my third "year", so I know there's a lot that hasn't happened yet, but so far, I'm enjoying the heck out of it. If you like the other HM games, I would definitely reccommend this game. I'm 23 and female, and I think this game is addicting.
 Solid addictive game but pure time waster October 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Like many of the reviewers that gave average scores, I'm a veteran HM player. I've played Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness for over fifty hours now (almost to year 5) and have been quite disappointed. It's addictive, but it's no fun and frustrating.
Pros:
1. Includes both boy and girl main characters in one game. Huge plus.
2. Use of touch controls compared to HM DS. People complain about poor controls, but one just needs to get used to it. Note that you can use the D-pad/buttons to select and use the tools.
3. Almost no typos and glitches. Very solid.
4. Rebuilding an entire island town is a refreshing approach.
5. Tool upgrading thru wonderfuls adds a nice RPG element.
Cons:
1. Frustrating randomness. Crops only grows depending on weather conditions, which makes sense. However, you can go a whole season without profit cause it rained too much or get a series of cloudy days.
2. Cheap events and cheap festivals. The elements that really made the HM games great are neglected once again. The festivals have no activities, just participation crap. Where are the tomato fights, chicken sumo, horse racing, etc?!? There aren't even any mountain top romance scenes.
3. Mining is still no fun and is a huge time sink, and you can't avoid it if you want to progress. Mining sucks.
4. A lot of corner-cutting design decisions: several villagers have the same model, no wedding dresses/tuxedos for marriages, repetitive dialogs.
5. You're forced to socialize occasionally to prevent people from moving out or from refusing your gifts. Note that this game can reach up to 99 villagers.
6. So many tiny and costly upgrades meant to just slow you down.
7. Animal care mini-games are no fun and just gives you blisters.
8. Harvest Sprites no longer help you with the farm work!
Update - Forgot some major cons:
9. Separate spouse beds...what an awkward relationship.
10. Growing trees is terrible. Over a year to grow and addition 1-2 years to make the profit over just the cost of seeds.
11. No mayor, no clinic, no library (would be helpful to explain all the complications), etc. Just farm stores, 2 restaurants, and 2 hotels. What a lame town.
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