Harvest Moon: Light Of Hope Special Edition Complete has publisher Natsume continuing Harvest Moon without the original Story of Seasons teamHarvest Moon: Light Of Hope Special Edition Complete has publisher Natsume continuing Harvest Moon without the original Story of Seasons team has made fan appreciation decline. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope looks closer to the original formula and the "Complete Edition" includes the full game and all of the DLC, Four new marriage candidates, decorations, outfits, requests, and much more. Looking at the graphics, my initial impression of Light of Hope was a bit of a let down. As you progress through the different seasons, building your farm, mining, foraging, and meeting villagers doesn't really offer much variety. The village is full of the same sprites reused to represent trees that can be cut down for either softwood or hardwood, rocks, weeds, and unusual rare items. The foraged items consist of just a few plants and they are all represented by the same reused graphics. The audio isn't what I had hoped for, as I became annoyed at the constant sound of cicadas. In recent Story of Seasons titles, bug catching is a large piece of the gameplay, including catching different types of cicadas. So, the constant chirping makes sense. However, in Light of Hope, there is no bug catching so why is the sound there and reminds me of a lack interns of gameplay. Another audio issue is the "Zelda" sound when down to one heart. Getting your energy low is common in Harvest Moon games so this can wear on you as well. The farming in Light of Hope is basic consisting of sowing seeds, watering, fertilizing, and harvesting, there's also the possibility of crop mutations. You can increase the chance of mutation by planting crops in the four types of land with fertilizer. It's a nice touch but it's completely random so it isn't overly satisfying. They sell for more and can be used in some recipes and requests from villagers but that sums it up. Natsume at least did a bit of mixing things up but not quite as much as I had hoped. One major thing that has me scratching my head in Light of Hope is there are so many lots of land but it's impossible to maintain that many crops so to me it wasn't useable area. Story of Seasons games have you building makers that create things like cloth and pottery and you're always needing one more patch of land that you can use as an advantage. Light of Hope keeps unlocking new areas as you progress but you're never overly excited, because again you can't maintain more crops than you already have. You'll spend a lot of time mining in Light of Hope due to the fact that it doesn't handle making money through tasks very well. When in need of money, you'll find yourself in the mines because one gem and selling it can make way more than planting crops or getting milk and eggs from your farm. Mining is grinding as you hit pieces of ground with your hoe in hopes to find the ladder to the next floor. Each floor has a few stones you can break to find ore or gems and as soon as you collect them then it's back to trying to looking for the next ladder. It's tedious grinding to reap the financial rewards. It's also cumbersome that you need multiple pieces of low grade ore to trade with the blacksmith for one piece of refined. It's just as rare to find ore as gems yet you need the ore to fulfill requests to reach new areas. Light of Hope's animal selection isn't bad, you start out with just chickens, donkeys, cows, sheep, and a horse that you can ride around on. After finishing the main storyline you unlock brown chickens, brown cows, cotton sheep, and silky donkeys. They offer different varieties of the same items you'll find from the original animal set. Light of Hope's story is short and unchallenging as I completed it by mid-summer. I usually finish these games in the second year. You work with sprites that only you can see to restore light to a lighthouse. As you uncover each of the five stone tablets and place them into the base of the lighthouse, a new light appears and you unlock the next chapter. The tasks you have to complete to get each tablet are simple and I sometimes finished two tablets at once. Other Harvest Moon games would have you building up to a finale after working for weeks or even months to get all of the necessary items you need in order to progress, however due to the lack of item variety and barely any crafting, Light of Hope is too simple to its predecessors. I enjoyed the character automatically selecting the appropriate tools for a job and all Harvest Moon titles should have had this mechanic. However, there's no strafing and this can make farming more difficult. Strafing is a must use for myself in Harvest Moon and it's a action that's simply missing in Light of Hope. A unique addition to Harvest Moon: Light of Hope is a two player mode that allows you to add an additional player who can follow you around and help with chores. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope has the core Harvest Moon concepts however, it comes in short of its fans "Light Of Hope".… Expand
