For the past ten years, the Harvest Moon series has somehow managed to make the chore-like nature of planting tomatoes and cutting grass seem fun. How it has achieved this sorcery is a pure mystery. Regardless, it seems that the creators have decided to give the series a futuristic facelift in Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon. Unfortunately, while most other titles in the series give off a distinctive and quaint charm, Innocent Life seems completely out of place with other Harvest Moon titles. It could be the generic futuristic setting, or it could be the dull-as-dirt pacing and little to do, but in the end, Innocent Life is painfully forgettable, even for the biggest Harvest Moon fan.

Innocent Life takes place in the far-off and totally futuristic year of 2022. On the Island of Heartflame, which coincidentally looks like a big heart, most of the old agricultural practices have been outdated by automated processes, which have led to a pretty easy life. Unfortunately, this has also angered the spirits of the island, who have punished humanity by locking off land and threatening to erupt the nearby volcano. In a last ditch effort, the sickeningly named Dr. Hope creates you, a robot boy, to tend to the farmlands and bring back the old farming methods. That's right, he's solving the problem by making robots do the work instead. That's progress.

Unlike most other Harvest Moon titles, instead of working on the usual farm, all of the farmland resides on top of a set of ancient ruins. It's a different feeling, although for the most part, the mechanics are mostly the same. What is different is that you only have access to a small bit of the actual ruins at first, with the rest being unlocked as you complete your robotly tasks. These tasks will eventually unlock a lot more content than you're originally given at the start, which is great if you can tread through to get to it all. The keyword here is "if" you can get through the slow-paced story and gameplay, which will tax even the highest thresholds of patience.

Probably one of the worst aspects to be found in Innocent Life is the passage of time and the fact that, in the beginning at least, there just isn't a lot to do. One hour in game equals a minute in real time, meaning one day, minus sleeping, will last for 24 minutes. Towards the start of the game, about the only thing to really do is plant crops and travel to the nearby town, and since you have a limited amount of land, you won't be able to plant much of anything. As time rolls on, more areas will open, such as the mine or volcano, and more land becomes unlocked, but it gets to the point where a day will consist of going up to water your crops and then heading right back to bed well before noon. Granted, this is somewhat helpful later on in the game when you'll be spending a lot of time exploring the island. Still, it isn't natural to be going to bed at ten in the morning, even if I am a robot.

Speaking of exploration, it seems to take up a good portion of the later game. In fact, it's actually a bit of a stretch to say that Innocent Life is about farming, despite the story advertising this. You'll be doing a lot of it near the beginning to be sure, but the game is much more orientated towards exploration. There is a much bigger emphasis on traveling to unexplored, hostile areas like the resident volcano, with being a descendant of the Mars Pathfinder and whatnot. At the same time, your fields will go unattended quickly, and since there isn't a whole lot you need money for (and the fact that crop returns seem pretty generous), who needs farming? Not a Harvest Moon title, apparently. I haven't even mentioned that you, a robot, will eventually receive another robot to do your chores for you. Irony is in plentiful supply here.

Even with the aforementioned issues, maybe the biggest offender in Innocent Life comes from the fact that the game lacks any real charm to keep you coming back. Previous games in the series provided the player with plenty of work, but also enough time to explore the town and interact with townspeople. Here, the town is such a far distance from the ruins that you will probably opt out to just sleep rather than travel to town, especially since there is nothing particularly interesting about any of the town folk. Since you're a robot, marriage isn't an option here, and with several other staples of the series in absence, fans of the series in particular will find Innocent Life to be the proverbial black sheep of the series. The futuristic setting doesn't help either, which seems as generic as you would expect a game that's thrown into "the future" would be.

There isn't a whole lot that's outstanding about Innocent Life, but the biggest credit it can draw probably comes from the graphics. While they aren't mind-blowing, the game does look fairly nice and crisp for a PSP game. While there are a lot of bland elements in places, there's nothing particularly offensive to be found with the environments or characters. Additionally, load times are minimal, with few, if any, load screens and relatively speedy loading of the reasonably large island. The music isn't as noteworthy, although the tunes do sound mostly pleasant. The real problem with the music is that you'll grow bored of the repeating tracks in no time.

Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon is a difficult game to recommend to even the biggest Harvest Moon fan. It lacks any of the charm projected by previous games and trades it all for a generic, uninspired future setting. Everything about the game seems to be a trial of patience, from the dragging story to the slow pace of time. If you have the kind of patience to plod through all of it, Innocent Life could be worth your while. Chances are, though, that few people will even want to bother.

Jul 5, 2007 | 0 comments
Chris Massey