Harvest Moon: One World Review

2021 really is the year for massive gaming anniversaries. Zelda is celebrating 35 years on the scene, Sonic turns 30 this year, and Pokémon is 25-years-old. One anniversary that has likely been overshadowed by these juggernauts is Harvest Moon's. The farming simulator first debuted on the SNES in 1996 and its influence on the gaming world can still be felt today with titles such as Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing taking a page from its book. Coinciding with the farming sim's 25th year is One World. This latest outing looks to revitalise the series with more of a focus on exploration, but can it save the series from the rocky path it has found itself on in recent years?

After creating your character, you find yourself within a depressing world where potatoes are the only food source and other vegetables are merely just pictures within a book. Your homeland is currently a shadow of its former self, as it was once blessed by a mysterious entity known as the Harvest Goddess and was filled with many tasty vegetables. Within One World's story it's up to you to revive the Harvest Goddess and try and revert the world back to the place it was before people lost their respect for nature.

The core gameplay loop within One World is split into two aspects: interacting with and completing quests for villagers and expanding and maintaining your farmland. Advancing the storyline often sees these two aspects intertwine, as you'll need to produce certain items to be able to help villagers with the various problems that they are encountering. Something that I liked is that the story can be completed at your own pace and you are free to grow crops, expand your farmland and complete quests for villagers whenever you wish.

Something I appreciated right off the bat was how simplified farming feels. By selecting a patch of terrain and pushing the A button (on Switch) the game will automatically select the next action required, whether you need to plant a seed, water your crops, or add fertiliser. The same is the case when you're mining or looking to cut down a tree - you don't need to fumble your way through menus and choose the right tool for the job, it's just there for you.

One World offers a different approach to farming, as exploration is required to obtain seeds. Instead of being able to purchase seeds from a general store, you instead receive them by interacting with Harvest Wisps, which are scattered across the map. These Wisps always remain in the same place and they offer you one seed per day. Personally, I found myself torn on this concept. Sure, it helps to shake up the formula, but I missed having the convenience of being able to purchase seeds from one location. Many of the game's routes are also lifeless and bland, which made me never feel an urge to return back to them.

Another interesting aspect about farming is that the crops you grow mutate depending on the season and the environment they're placed to grow in. Across the map, there are five different towns, which all have their own unique biomes and you can move your farm freely between them at any time due to it being portable. A watermelon growing on the beach's sands will become a mellow yellow, for example, and a white berry in snowy terrain will become a magical berry. These factors gave me a little to think over when planning where to plant my crops and it was fun to experiment to see what different results I'd get.

What really hurt the experience for me was a handful of frustrating design choices. There doesn't appear to be an option present to discard items and you can't even switch items out of your inventory for ones that are placed on the ground. In addition to this, your stamina is always depleting when walking around at the same rate as it would if you were chopping down a tree for harvesting a plant. Sure, it makes sense that you'd get tired over time, but larger trips between areas felt almost impossible unless I'd stocked up on consumables.

The presentation here also lacks polish and has a budget-like quality to it. Many of the towns you enter feel completely vacant (some houses are just empty) and there's little to distinguish the connecting routes besides a simple palette swap. Dialogue sequences also look really messy, as your character model can often be seen in the background caught within a running animation or facing in completely the opposite direction.

One World might have a few interesting ideas up its sleeve, but the execution sadly feels sloppy and far from the previous heights we've seen from the series. I did enjoy how simplistic farming felt and how there was an effort to implement exploration into the core gameplay loop even though it had shortcomings. I did, however, find a handful of its design choices to be questionable and its presentation certainly could have done with a lot of work. Hopefully, the developers can build upon some of the new ideas explored here and utilise them with more care in future outings.