You have moved to an island town that was once brimming with life and energy. Now, however, the island is in trouble! The mystical Mother Tree that once watched over the island has disappeared, and the Harvest Goddess is nowhere to be found! The island has lost its connection with nature and the inhabitants dont know what to do. It is up to you to save the island! Till the earth, befriend and raise animals, nurture friendships, and build a family. When the giant Mother Tree is reborn, the Harvest Goddess will be able to return and bring prosperity to the island once again. Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is filled with exciting features that are sure to delight both new players and long-time Harvest Moon fans! There are lot of crops to grow, a variety of animals to care for, tons of festivals to participate in, and an exciting story!
Features:
•
Feel like you're really farming with the Nintendo Wii Remote!
•
Play as a boy or as a girl!
•
Work Part-time jobs
•
An amazing variety of crops, animals, events, and mini-games!
Average Customer Review:
( 85 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 56 found the following review helpful:
Well worth the waitOct 06, 2008
By A. Hancock I am a huge fan of the Harvest Moon games and have been since the PS1 version came out. It was rather frustrating when they kept postponing the release for the Tree of Tranquility, but the end product was definitely worth waiting for.
The storyline is great so far. You have to think a bit about what they want you to do next. It is definitely more challenging than the Magical Melodies version on the Gamecube, a definite plus, in my opinion.
I really liked the beginning, a longer story to start you off in your new home on the island. Yes, it is true that you get tired very easily in the beginning of the game, but I look at it as a challenge rather than a frustration. Once you start to save a bit of money up, and you can start improving your tools, your energy will last much longer. You don't want the game to be too easy or your first run through will be over too fast!
One nice thing about the early part of the game is that, even if you are tired from farming, you can still work that part-time job for the extra cash. I do agree that it would have been nice to have a mini-game for the part-time job rather than just a (little bit too long) movie clip.
Great variety of new animals in the game, easy farming controls, easy to get the animals in and out of the barn to graze. Nice to be able to decorate your house the way you want it, options to buy more land etc... It seems like they kept a lot of the good things that were in the gamecube Magical Melodies version and added even more nice things for variety.
I think they did a fantastic job with this game, and if you have enjoyed past Harvest Moon releases, you will probably love it too.
33 of 36 found the following review helpful:
So far so good! *Major Glitch Update*Oct 07, 2008
By Willow Tree *Update. There is a very bad game killing glitch in regards to female players courting Calvin. If you're playing as the girl character, the game will freeze when you trigger Calvin's "five heart" event, which is his "request" event. This happens on the 10th floor of the mines. While looking at the mural Calvin freezes halfway through his speech, the game hard-locks and requires a system reset. This happened to me personally and I am not happy about it one bit. This is a major issue that now prevents me from going past the 10th floor in the mine unless I fall through a crack in the floor. I would drop my rating of the game to 3 1/2 stars just for the fact that I now have to work on lowering Calvins heart level so I can access the mines normally...what a pain. :(*
Well, I will start off with the fact that I am very pleased with the controls in this game. The Wii remote is utilized in such a way that it works perfectly. You can use your buttons or swing your remote around to achieve various tasks with your tools. I like having options on how to perform a task because sometimes I feel like swinging my arm around, and sometimes I don't. This is a great improvement over the new DS Island of Happiness that doesn't give you options in the way of control and was only stylus driven (which is a pain IMO).
As for this game, once you get going it really is very enjoyable and there is so much do. I know another reviewer complained how quickly their character tires from doing tasks throughout the day. This improves quickly as you upgrade your tools and skill level. Each tool upgrade lessens the amount of stamina used performing tasks. The hot springs used daily in the beginning is a major asset that allows you to double the amount of work you can perform in one day. There are herbs lying around at specific locations on the map that boost your stamina a little. The mushrooms in the mines area good source for an energy boost also. There is a great guide that you can buy for this game that is very helpful in getting you through that first tough season.
Fishing is really enjoyable. It also is a great source of money in the beginning. If you can buy matches from the General store and grill your fish at the fire pits next to the ocean that will boost quite a lot of your stamina if you eat them throughout the day.
I am already in the Fall season and have a barn, coop, and a 2nd level house. One cow, 1 sheep, 4 chickens, 1 silkworm, and finally my horse! Gardening is a lot of fun and with all that my character has accomplished there is still a ton of things to do that she simply hasn't had time or money to get to yet.
I like the Taylor shop that allows you to buy new outfits and hats! I was so happy when that store opened so I could upgrade my Rucksack! Whoohoo!
There aren't many cons to this game, but I feel they should be mentioned. Loading time between each area of the map is just annoying. I think that this takes to long and detracts from game play. Also, time is not stopped when you're in the mines, barns, or stores. It does give the game a bit more challenge, but its annoying to get kicked out of a store right when your about to make a purchase. Rushing in the barns to try and feed your animals, groom, shear, milk, etc. Trying to get out of the mines and hoping you make it home before the next day. I understand other HM versions worked this way, but I guess I am just not used to it yet.
All in all this is definitely a 5 star game. I haven't encountered any glitches so far (knock on wood). I look forward to seeing what else this game has to offer and I doubt I will be disappointed.
34 of 39 found the following review helpful:
Pretty fantasticOct 02, 2008
By A. Randall All in all, this is a pretty fantastic iteration of Harvest Moon. It combines the more dramatic, realistic setting and graphics of A Wonderful Life with the more childlike and cutesy feeling of Magical Melody and Harvest Moon 64 (still my gold standard after all these years). I haven't played it a whole lot yet (I just got it last night, after all) but I can tell it's going to get plenty of play at my house.
I already love the look of the game. It's pretty to look at, prettier than Magical Melody, though not as realistic and striking as A Wonderful Life (it's close, though). One of the first things that struck me was how bright and colorful it is. The flowers in particular are very well designed and richly colored (check out the interior of Souflee Farm to see what I mean). The detail on everything is very nice so far. The crops I've seen have been well rendered and the trees and plants and rocks are very realistic and obviously a lot of thought and effort was put into their design. I appreciate little details like that because it shows that the game wasn't just thrown together. The characters are also well done with many newly designed characters to look at and interact with. I would have preferred a more classic design on the male character, though. It feels less like Harvest Moon with no ball cap and/or bright red neckerchief. And a bowl cut? Seriously? But I digress...
To be fair, there are a few aspects of the game that I'm not in love with. They are as follows:
-Load times. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first Harvest Moon game with an actual "Loading" screen. It comes up every time you're going from location to location (i.e. from Town Square to Lake District or into someone's house) which is to say "a lot". It's not a dealbreaker, of course, but it does kind of interrupt the flow of the game.
-Cutesy music. The music for A Wonderful Life is dramatic and melancholy and orchestral and always fits the mood of the game perfectly. Even the whimsical Magical Melody has more serious music than Tree Of Tranquility. It's all peppy, fake-sounding synthesizers that just don't set the mood in the way past Harvest Moon games' music has. Of course, I've only played through the early tutorial stage and a few days of Spring so far, so hopefully the Fall and Winter music will be appropriately austere as in games past.
But, in the end, this is a new Harvest Moon game and Natsume would have to get pretty much EVERYTHING wrong to make me give it less than 3 stars. As such, Tree Of Tranquility makes an easy 4 out of 5 overall. And if Tree Of Tranquility lives up to its hype as the biggest, most in-depth Harvest Moon game ever, my final judgment may wind up being more than 4 stars. Only time will tell, and any time playing Harvest Moon is time well spent.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Non violent funOct 28, 2008
By CK All of the other reviews that I've read are from Harvest Moon veteran players. I'm a newbie so here's a review from someone who has never played any of the earlier versions.
HM has been around for 10 years (on different consoles obviously) and this is their 10th anniversary version. This is the first version made exclusively for the Wii.
HM is a farming sim game where you are a new arrival to a large enchanted island with hopes of becoming a rancher. You are given a small, simple house, a plot of land, and a little bit of gold to begin the game. You earn your livelihood by farming, ranching (making/selling yarn, mayo, butter, and cheese from the animal products), mining, fishing, cooking, and working part time jobs. With the money you make, you upgrade your house and tool quality, hire someone to build a barn, hire someone to build a chicken coop, buy animals to raise, buy seeds, buy new plots of land to farm, decorate your house, buy food and drink, and purchase clothes. There are four seasons in a year and 28 days in a season. Different plants and weather conditions exist in each season. In addition to the daily chores, there is also a mystery surrounding the island that you must solve. The island used to be more prosperous before the Goddess Tree died. Your mission is to bring another Goddess Tree to life.
Another feature of HM is that you choose to begin the game as a young single woman or a young single man. There are 7 eligible bachelors whom you could marry if your character is a girl and you've raised their affection level high enough or 8 eligible bachelorettes for male characters to marry. If you choose to wed, you will eventually have one child and have the option of starting the game anew using the child.
This is a game that you complete at your own pace. If you aren't quick about solving the Goddess Tree mystery, that's okay. The only thing that you need to hurry about is marrying the person you choose. If you don't marry the bachelor/bachelorette you desire quickly, he or she could marry one of the other eligible bachelors/bachelorettes.
When you begin the game, your character doesn't have much stamina and regains stamina after going to sleep for the night. At first, my character was running out of energy before noon when doing my tasks. Over time, your character's ability to complete tasks without getting worn out improves with improvements in skill, tool quality, and "power berries" that restores your stamina for the day and permanently increases your stamina capacity.
This game has no violence, sex, or anything that might be objectionable for young children to see. Animals may die of old age or if you don't take care of them (for example, they can catch a cold and die if they are left outside in the snow all night long), otherwise, there are no deaths in the game. It does have quite a bit of reading which makes it not appropriate for very young children to play because they wouldn't be able to read and follow the instructions. The game is rated E for Everyone.
I'll say that I've enjoyed the game, though it is taking me unconscionably long to complete compared to HM veterans. It took me several seasons to get the hang of it and figure out what I should be doing and how to be more efficient. It is easy to get sucked into the game because there is always some little task that needs to be completed (giving gifts to other residents, completing the harvest sprite rainbow recipe, tending to the animals, etc.).
I recommend this to people who like role playing games or want a non-violent, non-stressful game. If your favorite games are bloody shooting games, this is not for you.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Eat your heart out old Harvest Moons!Oct 04, 2008
By cm culinarian I do have to agree with the first reviewer about it being incredibly annoying when your person runs out of stamina too quickly. One or two chops with the axe and it's lights out! I'm sure that will change though. Your character is supposed to get stronger the more work you do. All of the other aspects of this game are great! They blow the other harvest moons out of the water for me! A mine with level after level to explore and a ton of places to go. I like the part time job aspect, although I do wish it was something that you could actually do as opposed to just sitting there watching. The people are fun and the story line isn't so light and fluffy that I want to gag...it's keeping me interested for now. In all I think this is a great attempt...the best so far in my book!!!
based on 85 reviews
( 85 customer reviews )
