C9 Review IGMC 2015 Submission: HomeSide
Cloud Rating:
A farming sim? Hmm. Good thing I was a huge fan of Harvest Moon. I love pretending to be a farmer and doing all this manual labor while in the comfort of my living room and A/C. This game sounds like it might be very fun. And it was. As expected.
So the game loads up and I'm greeting with this beautifully drawn title screen:
Nice. So I start the game and I receive a simple message. I'm assuming some kind of tragedy befell your gramps and somehow you just awaken at his old house and whether you want to or not you have to tend to his ranch and his hometown... forever. Well, back story isn't really needed (but just a little would be nice) because we all know what to do in a farming sim, right? FARM!
So I open up my bag and see I have the standard, high-tech farming equipment every new farmer needs. A hoe, a shovel, a water pail, and a fishing rod. I'm instructed to find the seed shop and get used to the tools.
Once I start exploring I realize a lot of work has gone into the mapping. The areas are very well put together and aside from some passability bugs everything seems to be working as intended, so far. I was sad that there wasn't much of a community yet, I'm assuming due to time constraints of the contest but I was looking forward to doing some B&E and talking to people in their living rooms like I lived there. Anyway, it took me a bit to find the seed shop as no businesses are clearly marked, again most likely due to time constraints. But after I finally found it, I loaded up on turnip seeds and went back to my farm to start a-plantin'.
Good lord, I never realized turnips grew so quickly! So quick in fact that after I planted and watered them, I went to bed only to wake up the next morning to one dead crop and the other died as I was rushing to save it. Now what? I have no money to buy seed and milk doesn't seem to have any selling value nor purpose yet. Lets try some fishing.
I have to say, I LOVED the fishing mini-game.
It was very intuitive and fun to play. So this was my means of saving up money to be able to buy new seeds.
So I finally have enough to buy more seeds. I stroll to the seed store on a crisp Wednesday morning only to find the seed store is closed! What the hell?! Another thing that would really benefit this game are the stores' hours.
But I forgot to mention on one of my trips to the store on I ran into a weird cat lady to whom I accidently gave a fish. She appreciated the gesture. I'm such a ladies man. Or a cat lover. Well, given the context here, I suppose cat lover isn't the best term to use...
While the originality just isn't there (I mean this is, after all, basically the same thing you see with any Harvest Moon fan game or farming sim) the author did make it very fun and exciting. The stamina system and the time cycle work very much in harmony and gives you a sense of urgency while at the same time allowing you to explore enough to get a feel of your surroundings. And even though the game isn't, obviously, finished yet and all the systems aren't completely intact the creator did a very good job with creative use of the assets and that fishing mini-game, I must say again that I'm really impressed. As of now, the replayability is lacking as well. I'm sure once the game is developed more this will change but as of now I'm giving HomeSide 2 clouds!
