Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

Nintendojo

Definitely stands on the shoulders of the Harvest Moons before it, but it also emerges as a much more polished, balanced, visually enjoyable, and definitive gameplay experience than any title in the series before it.

netjak

A guilty little pleasure. It is easy to pick up and hard to put down. The open-ended gameplay makes for a unique experience for every player.

VGPub

The graphics are a big step up from the Game Boy Color editions. With that being said, they are nothing amazing.

Nintendo Power

It's incredible that a game about farming could be so enthralling. [Jan 2004, p.157]

IGN

A deceptively engrossing game. One that will cause real days to disappear, and true chores to be neglected in favor of a lengthy farming session. It's brilliant in its simplicity, but yet as the days go on there are so many layers that peel away and reveal themselves.

GameBiz

It won’t let you down with respect to gameplay hours, and you’ll soon find yourself addicted to waking up every morning then watering your crops and milking your cows. Now who said games didn’t teach us life values?

GameZone

An immensely enjoyable game that will consume your day, if you're not careful. A great game for multiple players; too bad there are only two save slots.

Pocket Games

Visiting hot springs, betting on the horses, and sweet-talking the locals, this is much more than just a farming game. [Spring 2004, p.29]

GameSpot AU

It's quite a slow game, and at first many gamers may find it on the tepid side, as it's only once you've got the hang of how the whole farm holds together you'll find yourself dedicating more and more time to the simple joys that Harvest Moon has to offer.

Deeko

Sure, there is a lot of redundancy, but as I said earlier, everything you do within the game will pay off in the end. Make that old man proud and make that farm into one of the best!

GameSpot

You could play through it for a good 30 hours--roughly one year in game time--and still not uncover everything there is to see and do.

VideoGamesLife

Harvest Moon is hugely addictive and will almost certainly have you playing for hours on end when you only expected to fill that blank half-an-hour in your schedule.

Computer and Video Games

The game is so diverse that it'd take months, maybe years, to see everything.

Gamer.tv

If an upgraded hammer, that simply allows you to break bigger rocks, is reward enough to get you through another bleak winter's day, then buy this. You truly have what it takes to be a hoary-handed son of the soil.

Cheat Code Central

It's a fun RPG that has plenty going on. If you're not careful this game could steal hundreds of hours away from you.

Edge Magazine

Excellent. The rhythms of the day quickly become second nature and hypnotically absorbing. There're never enough hours in the day. [Jan 2004, p.106]

GamePro

If you’ve lived in the city your whole life and don’t know a dang thing about cows, don’t fret none: the controls are easier than ’possum pie.

games(TM)

Friends of Mineral Town is an absorbingly deep and enjoyable game, even if it does turn out to be little more than a 2D remake of the PlayStation's "Harvest Moon: Back To Nature." [Mar 2004, p.112]

GBA Central

Despite the language translation problems and the fact that the gameplay will eventually grow tiresome, Friends of Mineral Town provides one of the longest, most involving and addictive experiences to be released on the Game Boy Advance so far.

AceGamez

At first I thought it was fairly menial and uninteresting, running around looking after crops, but you get drawn into the tactics behind making enough money to marry a lass and raise kids, while enjoying the great character of the title.

Game Informer

As you can probably imagine, gameplay can be tedious, but the title does a good job of changing things up and adding new elements to the mix. [Dec 2003, p.187]

GMR Magazine

There are a lot of things about HM:FMT that make it ideal for GBA, but the main thing is the bite-sized chunks of time that the game is broken up into. [Dec 2003, p.104]

NTSC-uk

The mixture of splendidly chunky and vibrant visuals with coy hum-along tunes draws you deep within the game’s deceptively complex system, refusing to allow you out to even take a bathroom break.

GameSpy

There's a core game here that could've been very enjoyable had it been paced a little better.

1UP

I guess I can see where some people might enjoy this existence, but it's not for me. I need some sort of concrete goal in my life. Not to mention variety.