Saturday, March 26, 2011

Lolita Game Review: Harvest Moon Animal Parade!!

This is the first time I've ever written a game review (or really, and kind of review) so please bear with me here. :)

As I mentioned before, this is a feature where I will talk about games that are fit to "stereotypical" Lolitas- that is, cute games, or maybe even games with Lolitas in them! (so most likely no violent shooters here, LOL :P)
The game I want to review today is a game I personally enjoy a bit too much: Harvest Moon Animal Parade!
I've personally been playing the Harvest Moon series since I was around 10 or 11 with Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (which, tbh, I don't remember much about since I was so young and I was stupid enough to sell it so I can't play it :( ). If you're not familiar, Harvest Moon is a game series for various Nintendo platforms (and PS2 and PSP, though I haven't played any of those versions) that's all about farming. In this game in particular, you play as a farmer that moves to a dying town with a little fairy. In order to save the town, you must perform various tasks in order to help revive a tree to save the game's all-powerful entity, the Harvest Goddess. Most of these tasks revolve around farming. Sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? If you can get into it, it's actually quite fun.
First of all: if you're not into time-consuming games, Harvest Moon isn't for you (yes, probably even the portable versions). Whenever I get a new version of Harvest Moon, I immediately turn into an empty husk of a human being for anywhere from two to five weeks, depending on how it takes for me to complete the major plot (seriously, you ought to see my play time for this game when I first got it around two years ago... it's just awful xD). In fact, Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility is the game that averages the most play time for people who own it out of any game for Wii. But, if you're like me and have a lot of time to kill, then this game is just awesome.
How is this game related to Lolita, you ask? Well... it's freaking adorable. Look at it.
You can get so many animals!! I have three sheep, two cows, a horse, and LOTS of chickens. :) The only drawback is that in your barn, you can only have three species of animals at a time, so if you're like me and DESPERATELY want a goat but don't want to sacrifice your horse, then you're out of luck.
Another feature about the Harvest Moon series is that you can get married. You do this by giving particular male characters presents and talking to them EVERY DAY until they like you enough, at which point you can propose. It takes a while to get anybody to like you if you don't give them presents, so unless you don't want to get married until like the third year of the game (which is as far as I got before I started getting bored with the game) then I'd suggest doing that. You can only marry a girl if you play as a boy, or a boy if you play as a girl. Since all the marriage candidates or little cartoon characters (obviously), none of them can really be called "hot." So of course, I married the super-flamboyant Julius (who would almost DEFINITELY be gay in real life... there is absolutely no offense intended there, just... look at him).
One of the major reasons I reviewed this game in particular though, is because you can wear something that's supposed to Lolita (though the skirt is rather short... and who would want to farm in Lolita anyhow? :P).
There's also a character that dresses in Lolita, even sporting one of those old-school chunky headdresses that I personally have such a love/hate relationship with (they look so good on certain people... but only certain people. And SO MANY of them are encrusted with cheap lace! But the ones that aren't are so cute!).
So yeah, Harvest Moon. I recommend it to people with too much time on their hands that like semi-monotonous tasks, but honestly, that's pretty much it. These games are so fun and cute to me, but there are plenty of people who I know would hate them.
But... just look at those cute little sheep!!

2 comments:

  1. I kind of love the idea of a Lolita-themed violent shooter... XD

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  2. Haha that'd be so cool :D I believe I saw a shooter with Lolita characters WAY back when I was first getting into Lolita, but... I can't remember where D:

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