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.

• 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
  

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1114 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Released on: 2008-12-12
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Format: Unknown format
• Dimensions: .55 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

Amazon.co.uk
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.

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:

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.



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.

Customer Reviews

Amazing!
Ten years ago I picked up the remake of the original for the gameboy. I then forgot about this great series until recently when I decided to pick it up. This game copies a farmer's life perfectly but with a more childish look.

Controls-10/10- IoH uses touch screen controls with the D-pad or A/B/X/Y buttons to use equipped items. Some people complain about not using the D- pad to move but I find them quite charming. Touch and hold in the direction you want to move in and your character will move in that direction. Tap an item to pick it up and so on. For those who don't like to hold down the stylus all day long then holding the L/R button will cause your character to run.

Graphics-10/10- This game uses the DS's graphics to a good extent. Everything is crisp and clear; the top screen is used as a map to tell where everyone is on the island and it is a good map as far as maps could be. You can tell who is who easily. The bottom screen is where your person is along with his/her environment and everything has a 3-D look.

Gameplay-10/10- The real meat of the game, in IoH there is so much to do. Fish, mine, woo a male or female partner for life, get along with the villagers, take care of animals, and of course farm all you want! When you start out you have nothing but some seeds and a couple hundred bucks so there isn't much to do. But after a little bit if you befriend certain people then you can do much more. With this game comes a new bar to the series: the Full bar. After a bit of time your character will become hungry and if you do not feed them regularly then you can pass out. With the Full bar comes the Stamina bar. As you use tools your character will tire from doing physical work and will need rest. If one of the two bars empties completely, then your character will pass out and will wake up later. Maintaining the bars takes a while to get used to but when you do it becomes easier.

Farming has a new system in this game. Depending on the weather your crops will grow differently with each type of crop needing a certain amount of sunlight and water. Because of this you will want to watch what the weather is or else you crops could die. When you obtain the fishing rod you can start to fish. Fishing helps because you can do it at any body of water during any weather that you can go outside. Fishing becomes a necessity for beginners. After you unlock some areas, mining becomes available.

Animals are very interesting in this game. They have a stress bar and will not produce good products if they are too stressed out. There are also a variety of mini games to play when dealing with them but they appear at random. Like Nintendogs, you can pet your animal to make them happier. When milking cows, there is a timing game. Sheep run across the touch screen and you shear the wool off. You can ride a horse for a quick way of transportation or keep your dog outside at night to defend your farm.

Music-9/10- The music is nice and relaxing, changing is certain areas and seasons. The only bad thing about the music is that by the time you get halfway through a season it gets tiresome and boring.

Story-10/10- This game has a great story because you control it all. You determine what you do, when you do it, and how you do it. You decide who you want to marry, where you spend your time and if you want to watch others find their love. The basic story is that you go on a boat to move a new island to start a fresh life, unfortunately your ship sinks and you end up on an island. You decide to take over the farm.

Replayability-9/10- There is so much to do, but you can't do it all on one file. From wooing different marriage candidates to beginning with a different method, you have to use the second file to "100%" the game. You have two files to use but it may have been better to have more.

Overall-9.6- A great game to add to any collection. If you are interested at all then buy it. It would be hard to rent the game because of all the things to do. I am very happy to own this game and think of it as one of the best games that I have ever played. I recommend this to anyone who owns a DS

The farmers life is a life for me!
I felt that the 1 star review was a little bit harsh. However, I can appreciate that if a controls system annoys a person then it's hard to get to grips with.
I don't like the way Harvest Moon has changed the controls; I still feel there should have been an option to toggle between Stylus movement and D-pad movement.

This does not mean the game is total trash.

There are a lot of good points to Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. I like the fact that you can earn a 'living' in a variety of ways. At the beginning you can run around grabbing flowers and chopping up logs / smashing stones and sell the bi-products from that. Or you can buy some seeds and start growing plants.

Gradually more options open up; you can deal in livestock, start fishing or make a trade selling ores / minerals from the mines.

There are a bunch of ways to play and in the middle of this difficult life of toil there is the chance to make friends and maybe a lover.

This is not the kind of game that everyone will like, however if you liked previous Harvest Moons or enjoy games such as Animal Crossing and possibly the SIMS then this is a good one to have a go at.

It's a portable little world that you can play briefly or for a long while.

I've had this game for a few weeks now and still find myself working my way through the years, steadily building up my farming empire.

It's not quite as in depth as some simulation games, but that is a charm in itself.

The controls are tricky at first and as another reviewer pointed out, the music can get tedious. But the game is still solid and enjoyable.

I think it's worth a try if you like alternative lifestyle games, farming or just trying something a bit different.

Thoroughly Recommended!!
I do agree with the review below regarding the stylis. It does take a while to get used to, I still press the arrow buttons by mistake to make my character move after playing it for 8 days. However this I find is the only let down of the game, the graphics are alot better than the previous HM on the DS and I find the game alot more gripping as you have a goal to work towards instead of just plowing along with ur daily tasks of growing crops and tending to your animals.
I do thoroughly recommend this game if you are a Harvest Moon fan!! I have had this game for just over a week now and im glued to it!