Well, I've been playing Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness again lately,
so I'm going to use this month's journal to talk about the Harvest Moon
games a bit. For anyone unfamiliar, Harvest Moon is basically a farming
sim. You get some land and a run-down farm, and you spend your time
trying to balance your chores and social life with the other characters.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is the most recent installment of the
series on a hand-held system, (The Nintendo DS,) and continues this
formula in a different way than any of its past iterations. After being
shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, you and the other survivors
decide to try and make it successful through your new ranch.



Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands is the sequel to this game. Apparently,
the goal in this game is to raise a new set of islands from underneath
the ocean and once again bringing prosperity back to the land. Many
of Island of Happiness's characters, bachelors, and bachelorettes will
return in addition to a few new ones. Each island that you resurface
has its own unique uses, too. There are islands devoted to things
like mining, mushrooms, and housing the Harvest Sprites.

But my favorite bits of news concern the game's animals. I love all
of the animals I have in Island of Happiness, and I'm happy to say
that its successor only adds to the variety of animals you can own
and interact with. For starters, you can feed wild animals such as
monkeys, badgers, and ducks to help you with small tasks, usually
ones involving collecting items in the area such as lumber.

I love the animals I have on Komali Ranch now, so I'm most excited
the new livestock and pet features. The current list of available pets
includes a dog, a horse, a tabby cat (top screen), and a pig. On a
side note, we can see on the bottom half of the cat picture that
black chickens seem to be available, as do brown cows.



Well, I hope that this was exciting and informative for any
of the Harvest Moon fans out there who have actually read
this far. It seems like it may actually be released this month,
but it could also take as long as sometime in November. If I
find out for sure, I'll probably update this. Until next time.