Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley (USA) PSP ISO

Review by SupahCow090:

Let me clear this as early as now, Harvest Moon: The Hero of Leaf Valley is not everybody as most Harvest Moon games are. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it game. Once you start to love it though, you’ll never put your PSP down again.

STORY

In Harvest Moon: The Hero of Leaf Valley, you start with the main character receiving a letter regarding your deceased grandfather’s farm. You then become the new owner of your grandfather’s farm. After waking up on your first day in the farm, the Harvest Sprites and the Harvest Goddess talk to you about Leaf Valley and the FunLand company that wants to turn Leaf Valley into a amusement park. They will ask you to help save Leaf Valley, and of course, you accept the job. But you will only have 2 years to pay off the $50,000 fee that’s required to make FunLand stop their plan. The Hero of Leaf Valley is one of the few Harvest Moon games that actually has a challenge, which is pretty great. You can’t slack off and do nothing like in other installments in the series. You have to work. You can even unlock paths that can help you stop FunLand without paying the fee!

GAMEPLAY

Like every Harvest Moon games, this is focused on farm and ranch life with lots of other neat features that can surely captivate your heart. You can plant, water, harvest and sell crops and raise animals while doing extra tasks such as mining ores and fishing through cute and fun mini-games! My only problem is the lack of livestock. You only have cows. Horses don’t do much except for horse racing. The lack of sheep as a livestock is disappointing. Alongside these tasks, one of Harvest Moon’s key elements, is character growth. You can communicate with other characters and make your relationship blossom. All characters are different and unique! If things get intimate, you two can even get married and start a family!

CONTROLS

Controls for Harvest Moon: The Hero of Leaf Valley is simple. You don’t have combinations of buttons to press to activate an action. Most, if not all, actions you do are triggered with one press of a button which is handy. Tutorials aren’t even necessary for this game as the controls are really easy. Even newbies can get the controls within minutes of gameplay.

GRAPHICS

The art style is quite different from other Harvest Moon games as they seem more mature and detailed. And I like it. The models of the characters are well-done and very polished. The portraits are drawn in a very likable art style. The background isn’t spectacular or amazing. The color pallet they’ve chosen is filled with soft and easy colors. It’s simple and very easy to our eyes.

SOUND

As expected from Harvest Moon games, they’re very relaxing and easy to players’ ears. It’s very suited for farm life. Relaxing, smooth, and calm. It’s something you’d like to listen to while doing farm work. Listening to the same music for 3 hours straight says a lot. The background music can go on forever and I won’t even get irritated one bit. Usually, I’ll play games in mute and play music from a separate device but some games are exceptions, and Harvest Moon: The Hero of Lost Valley is one of them.

FINAL VERDICT

STORY: 8/10 One of the few Harvest Moon games that has a nice plot and challenge.
GAMEPLAY: 8/10 Lack of sheep and loading screens are pullbacks, but overall, great.
CONTROLS: 9/10 Very easy. Newbies to veterans, anyone can play this game without a sweat.
GRAPHICS: 7/10 Nothing spectacular but art style and color palette is neatly done and polished.
SOUNDS: 9/10 Great background music that you’ll never be tired of.
OVERALL: 8.5/10 One of Harvest Moon’s greatest entries. Simple and fun that you’ll easily get hooked to.

• PSPKiNG.iso CRC-32: 6e3abe6d (UMD) Redump verified.
• (PSN).iso CRC-32: .iso CRC-32: 7aa5fcd9 Renascene verified.